‘Making a statement’: What NC Freedom Park’s Beacon will mean

North Carolina Freedom Park is rising.

The downtown Raleigh park that celebrates freedom and the African American experience now has its centerpiece: the 50-foot tall, steel Beacon of Freedom.

Park board members and historians don’t consider the Beacon a monument, not in the traditional sense. That’s part of what makes it significant, said historian Reginald Hildebrand.

“This isn’t exclusively, a celebration of Black history, although it is that. But it is making a statement about what Black people have to say, to the region and to the world about freedom that is distinctive, and of urgency because of their particular perspective,” said Hildebrand, a park board member and retired UNC-Chapel Hill history professor.

Hildebrand said that history is often about whose words are remembered and affirmed, and who gets to speak to give meaning to an event or time period.

“With the 20 quotes that will be artfully inscribed on the walkways here, we have people from enslaved people and bank presidents and poets and editors, religious people, politicians, soldiers — from their own perspective, talking about freedom, the meaning of freedom, the struggle for freedom, what it means to be denied freedom — and that conversation through different time periods and different generations, with anyone who comes to that park, that is the monument. Of which that beacon is a symbol,” Hildebrand said.

The Beacon could be seen as “symbolic of the pillar of fire that led Israelites out of the house of bondage to the Promised Land,” he said, or the Statue of Liberty.

“That beacon serves the purpose of encouraging and supporting people who are in this country, seeking freedom to define it, to expand it and secure it,” he said. Hildebrand said the most meaningful way, to him, of thinking about the Beacon of Freedom is captured in the 20 quotations that will be inscribed in the park.

“Each of those individuals, from their own perspective, have something to tell people who come to this park about freedom — some word of encouragement, some word of understanding, some word to inspire them. And in a sense from the Black spiritual, ‘This Little Light of Mine,’ each of them, their lights of their lives are symbolized by that Beacon collectively, the fire coming from their background, their lives, what they had to say will be lit and shining into the sky at night and gleaming when the sun shines on it.”

Park board member Reggie Hodges sees the Beacon of Freedom as a “spirit of hope,” not a monument.

“The Beacon is a inspirational piece of art that relates to a spirit, a spirit of hope. It reflects what people want to achieve. And a lot of people think that the struggle for freedom is over, has been won. But the struggle for freedom is ongoing. And the flame represents that,” Hodges said.

Black people have been in North Carolina since the 1600s, he said.

“We went through the antebellum period, we went through the abolitionist period, emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, all of that — and that flame that this represents has been there through all of those periods — and it will be there for years to come,” Hodges said.

The Beacon will shine its light in two ways — both the sun shining on the metal piece itself during the day, and with electricity at night. The public art centerpiece is about 50 feet tall including its base, and made of stainless steel and painted orange, like fire. It arrived in Raleigh about a week ago on a flatbed truck from Denver, Colorado.

Freedom Park was designed by Perkins&Will architecture firm, led by the late Phil Freelon. The firm also designed the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. The park is constructed on the block between the Executive Mansion and the Legislative Building by Holt Brothers, which is based in Raleigh.

Allen Pratt, a landscape architect at Perkins&Will, said the low walls and pathways act as a “journey to the Beacon” at the center. Along the walls are the inscribed quotations, including from civil rights leader Ella Baker, founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at Shaw University, who grew up in Littleton.

“Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit, a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind,” Baker said.

Near the Beacon will be a quote from Lyda Moore Merrick, an editor and advocate for the blind who lived from 1890 to 1987. Her father was Aaron McDuffie Moore, the first Black medical doctor in Durham.

“My father passed the torch to me, which I have never let go out,” Merrick said.

Chuck Watts, who is Merrick’s grandson, and said the quotations on the wall also lead visitors to dive deeper into the history they reference.

A ‘destination’ in downtown Raleigh

The park has been decades in the making, and funded by both public and private money. It should be ready to open by mid-2023, but the Beacon is already changing the landscape of an area of downtown that has looked the same for decades. In the next few years, the state government complex that surrounds it will also have some changes, including demolition of the Bath Building across Lane Street from the park.

A few blocks away, the long planned African American monument on the State Capitol grounds remains stalled until the legislature allocates $2.5 million in funding.

This past year, state archaeologists uncovered part of a stone foundation wall from a 1850 house once on the land owned by Thomas Devereux Hogg, a white businessman who enslaved 18 people in Raleigh, according to the 1850 census. People who were enslaved built the house. The block also includes the State Archives and State Records buildings. Several trees remain on the property. The main park entrance will be on the Wilmington Street side of the park that faces the Legislative Building. Once complete, the state Department of Administration and Department of Natural and Cultural Resources will maintain it.

Hodges said they see Freedom Park as a gathering places for both children and adults as well as visitors to Raleigh and the state. Students on field trips will be able to visit the park and have picnics there. The park’s board is putting together a book that shares the history and gives context to the quotations.

Hildebrand said the Beacon of Freedom will be seen on things like lapel pins and postcards.

“This will be a destination,” Hildebrand said. “People will be coming here to look at that Beacon and to read those quotes. And so that will transform this this area, and make it lively and important.”

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