Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect

2021

Romi Crawford, Editor

A collaboration of artists and writers commemorates a powerful symbol for social justice and freedom on Chicago’s South Side

Romi Crawford proposes the concept of “fleeting monuments,” asking a range of artists and writers to realize antiheroic, nonstatic, and impermanent strategies for commemoration. The result is a collection of “fleeting monuments” of poetry, photography, essays, artworks, and performance that invites readers to enact the history of the Wall of Respect on their own terms.

The Wall of Respect, a work of public art created in 1967 at the corner of Forty-third Street and Langley Avenue on Chicago’s South Side, depicted Black leaders in music, literature, politics, and sports. The Wall sparked a nationwide mural movement, provided a platform for community engagement, and was a foundational work of the Black Arts Movement. There is no longer any physical indication of its existence, but it still needs to be remembered. Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect argues against making a monument of it, or of other historically significant events, in the formal language of grandness and permanence. Instead, Romi Crawford proposes the concept of “fleeting monuments,” asking a range of artists and writers to realize antiheroic, nonstatic, and impermanent strategies for commemoration. The result is a collection of “fleeting monuments” of poetry, photography, essays, artworks, and performance that invites readers to enact the history of the Wall of Respect on their own terms. Through the intimate and portable format of a book, Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect recognizes and pays tribute to the Wall while proposing new strategies for commemoration and public memory that inspire us today as we endeavor to preserve the recent murals, installations, and other forms of public art created to support racial justice.

Contributors: Miguel Aguilar, Abdul Alkalimat and the Amus Mor Project, Wisdom Baty, Lauren Berlant, Mark Blanchard, Bethany Collins, Darryl Cowherd, D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem, Julio Finn, Maria Gaspar, Theaster Gates, Wills Glasspiegel, Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, Stephanie Koch, Kelly Lloyd, Damon Locks, Haki Madhubuti, Faheem Majeed, Nicole Mitchell Gantt, Naeem Mohaiemen, K. Kofi Moyo, Robert E. Paige, Kamau Patton, Jefferson Pinder, Cauleen Smith, Rohan Ayinde, solYchaski, Norman Teague, Jan Tichy, Val Gray Ward, Mechtild Widrich, and Bernard Williams.

Romi Crawford is professor in the Visual and Critical Studies and Liberal Arts departments at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is coeditor of The Wall of Respect: Public Art and Black Liberation in 1960s Chicago.

Contents



Dedication


Acknowledgments


Introduction: Fleeting Monuments and the Wall of Respect


Fleeting Monuments



I. Legacy Works


Romi Crawford


Abdul Alkalimat and the Amus Mor Project


Darryl Cowherd


K. Kofi Moyo


Haki Madhubuti


Robert E. Paige


Val Gray Ward



II. Gift Works


Miguel Aguilar


Bethany Collins


Julio Finn


Maria Gaspar


Wills Glasspiegel


Naeem Mohaiemen


Kamau Patton


Rohan Ayinde Smith



III. Reflective Works


D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem


Stephanie Koch


Stefano Harney and Fred Moten


Nicole Mitchell Gantt


Cauleen Smith


solYchaski


Norman Teague


Bernard Williams



IV. Do-for-Self Works


Wisdom Baty


Kelly Lloyd


Damon Locks


Mechtild Widrich


Jefferson Pinder



V. Remnant Works


Faheem Majeed


Jan Tichy


Mark Blanchard


Theaster Gates


Lauren Berlant and Romi Crawford



Contributors