Projections at Lee Monument offer peace in times of violence
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Aaron Parker took the final inhale of his last American Spirit cigarette and craned his neck toward the graffitied vestige of a Confederate past — a general revered in his history books as a “not-so-bad” enslaver who fought for states’ rights.
The Mechanicsville native never used to look up as he drove past, but after midnight on June 27 he felt empowered as a Black man on Monument Avenue, a thoroughfare anchored by tributes to people who fought for slavery, and lined by old-money homes.
In recent weeks, he’d seen Black Union soldiers and videos of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech projected onto the silhouette of Robert E. Lee’s horse, re-animating the bronze statue unveiled in 1890 and overlaying condemnations of police violence and white supremacy that have engulfed the monument in paint this month.
This is what the monuments could be, he thought.
Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois; haunting reminders of the Black faces lost to police violence such as Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Marcus-David Peters — George Floyd. His eyes gleamed.
“Black lives haven’t mattered for as long as I’ve been alive and way past that,” said Parker, adding that he sees these images as a vehicle for systemic change and long-delayed conversations about race and oppression.
Since June 2, that’s what the monument has been after nightfall: a looping projection recounting the centuries of pain and resilience of Black lives through the figures who fought and died for justice.
The projections, which have garnered national attention, are designed by Dustin Klein and Alex Criqui, two Richmond-based artists who sought to amplify the messages of Black Lives Matter after witnessing police tear gas...