The public is invited to attend an unveiling ceremony of the traveling “Blank Slate” Monument on Friday, June 11, 2021 at 1:00 p.m. (Central Time) on the grounds of the Lyles Station Historic School & Museum, 953 N. County Road, 500 W., Princeton, IN.
For a brief time, Lyle Station will be the home of "Blank State: Hope for a New America". It is a visual representation of the evolution of the Black experience and struggles in America and a tribute to African American history, by acclaimed Ghanaian artist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, best known for his work on display at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.
This powerful new “interactive” monument will tour across the U.S. this summer as a tribute to African American history and the ongoing fight for racial justice. Princeton will be the monument’s second stop as it travels across the country to locations that are important to African American history, including those with a painful legacy of racial injustice such as Louisville, Chicago, Atlanta, Selma, and Birmingham, also stopping at Underground Railroad sites in Indiana.
The massive statue represents the "new" American history in the midst of today’s racial crisis.
The statue features four figures that symbolize the generational struggles in the Black American experience: a slave ancestor, a lynched union soldier martyr, a struggling mother activist, and a baby representing the next generation. The statue ends with an interactive protest sign held by the mother figure at the top, symbolizing the unwritten future of hope and healing. The public may share their own ideas and hopes for creating positive change, which will flash across the blank slate on the statue using the #BlankSlateHope social campaign.
Speakers include Mayor Greg Wright, historian, Lyles Station President Stanley Madison, with a meet and greet with the artist immediately following the ceremony.
The Blank Slate Monument will be available to the public for observation, reflection, and participation in the conversation at the Lyles Station Historic School & Museum through Sunday, June 13th.
For more information, please contact the Gibson County Visitors and Tourism Bureau at 812-385-0999.