Commemoration and Healing

In addition to the theme studies identified by the NPS, and methods for recording history, this guide aims to highlight contemporary efforts by landscape architects, artists, architects, historians, interpreters, and others to redefine notions of commemoration beyond traditional memorials, historical markers, and interpretive/wayfinding signage. 

Parallel with the surge in scholarship outlined in earlier themes, there has been a burgeoning movement to address the often messy and complicated histories associated with many African American cultural landscapes. These memory-laden sites have been historically devalued, forgotten, confiscated, or erased. Efforts to spatialize these public memories, buoyed by a groundswell of community-based collective actions, have ushered in a new era of storytelling, remembrance, and recognition. 

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