Two benches exist at Lincoln University. Quiet and unassuming, they proudly take up space as monuments to memorialize enslaved African-Americans in the United States, writes Justin Heinze for Patch.
Overall, there are 34 benches around the world, with another two in Pennsylvania in Collingdale, Delaware County, and Harrisburg. These benches are the result of Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison’s “Bench by the Road” project through the Toni Morrison Society.
At Lincoln, one bench is on the campus proper, and the other is at the Hosana AUMP Church. The project encourages the remembrance of enslaved Africans, to remember not only slavery, but also their lives and history.
Morrison recognized an absence of historical markers, so now these benches are a place of contemplation and honor.
The project grew from an interview with The World magazine in 1989, where she said: “There is no place you or I can go, to think about or not think about, to summon the presences of, or recollect the absences of slaves. There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath, or wall, or park, or skyscraper lobby.
“There’s no 300-foot tower, there’s no small bench by the road. There is not even a tree scored, an initial that I can visit or you can visit in Charleston or Savannah or New York or Providence or better still on the banks of the Mississippi.”
Morrison gave the interview after publishing Beloved, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that embodies a memorial, noting that since no such place exists to remember enslaved people, the book had to be written.
Read more about the Bench by the Road project and Toni Morrison at Patch.
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