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Boston’s Shaw/54th Memorial: A Monument Used for Protest, Parades and Rededication
A bronze relief of Black Civil War soldiers marching was dedicated in 1897 opposite the Massachusetts State House, and Boston has used it for more than remembering. The Robert Gould Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, sits at the edge of Boston Common. Colonel Shaw and many of his men died in their assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, in July 1863, and the memorial honors one of the first and most influential Black regiments of the war. A National Park Service exhibition explores some ways people have used it since.
The Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial (NPS Photo/Teuten).
A timeline of use
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| May 31, 1897 | Dedication, with dignitaries, military groups and thousands of spectators. Sixty-five surviving veterans of the 54th were there. Saint-Gaudens wrote that the old soldiers passing the relief made it seem as though they were returning from the war |
| 1905 | At a Memorial Day ceremony with three Black veterans' organizations, Harriet Tubman attended. The Boston Herald reported she had given Shaw his last breakfast and nursed the wounded |
| 1909 | A Memorial Day event turned into a protest against Southern racist laws and violence |
| 1917 | In a parade for World War I, a 54th veteran, M. Jameson of Syracuse, stopped to salute the figures of his regiment |
| 1936 to 1939 | Veterans Rev. E. George Biddle and William H. Jackson attended in 1936. In 1937 the Robert Bell Post 134 was the only Black G.A.R. post in the Boston area, and Biddle, then 92, was its sole survivor. His last Memorial Day there was 1939 |
| March 1945 | Activist Ralph J. Banks, of the Boston Equal Rights League, told a legislative committee that the city had given Black people a monument but that they could not eat monuments. He was arguing for fair employment legislation; Massachusetts adopted a Fair Employment Practice Law in 1946 |
| June 1963 | After the killing of Medgar Evers, the NAACP held an event on the Common and a voter-registration drive, and marchers stopped at the memorial. The NAACP estimated that only half of the city's 30,000 eligible Black residents had registered |
| August 1963 | On the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, 500 members of Alpha Phi Alpha marched to the memorial to protest school segregation |
| June 1965 | The Boston Ministerial Alliance called on Roxbury pastors and citizens to gather there before marching on the School Committee over racial imbalance in schools |
| August 1969 | More than 250 anti-war demonstrators walked the Freedom Trail and ended with a rally at the memorial, sponsored by more than twenty organizations |
| April 1973 | Thousands gathered to protest the Racial Imbalance Law and court-ordered busing. Protesters climbed on the memorial with signs; in 1979 White students hung a "White People's Rights" placard on it |
| 1979 | Interfaith leaders launched a "love thy neighbor" campaign there before an estimated 4,000 people |
| 1997 | The centennial included Governor William Weld, descendants of the 54th, historians Henry Louis Gates Jr. and David Blight, and General Colin Powell as keynote speaker |
| 2009 onward | Every July several hundred people gather to read Frederick Douglass's "What is the 4th of July to the Negro?" aloud |
Dedication day and after
At the 1897 dedication, Mayor Josiah Quincy said the monument should give people courage if they ever doubted the future of American political institutions, and Booker T. Washington called it a monument to effort, not victory complete: what the 54th began, he said, others must complete.
In the early 1980s, concerned leaders formed the Committee to Save the Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial, partly to repair years of damage from acid rain and vandalism. A member said it showed Black and White citizens fighting side by side, and hoped Boston's schoolchildren would learn what it stood for.
Renewal
In 2018 the City of Boston, the Friends of the Public Garden, the Museum of African American History and the National Park Service formed the Committee to Renew the Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial. It aimed to stabilize the monument and restore its bronze relief, and to start community conversations on race and justice. The work continued through the pandemic and the protests of 2020. After more than a year of preservation work, the restored memorial reopened on Memorial Day weekend 2021. A National Rededication Ceremony on June 1, 2022, drew hundreds, with Civil War reenactors and speakers including Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Dr. Ibram X. Kendi.
The annual Reading Frederick Douglass event at the memorial (NPS Photo).
The restored memorial's unveiling, May 2021 (NPS Photo/Gould).
Sources
- National Park Service, The Ongoing March: Commemoration and Activism at the Robert Gould Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial, online exhibition; rewritten in hubnx's own words.