Donivan Brown spent recent months visiting various monuments across the United States – the ones that memorialize the nation’s most heroic moments, the ones that acknowledge its dark past.
He was drawn to the way those fixtures tell a story, how they connect the present to the past, how they change the way people see each other.
As chair of the Ed Johnson Project committee, Brown oversaw the final stretch of a yearslong effort to acknowledge the lynching of an innocent Black man on the Walnut Street Bridge 115 years ago.
On Sunday afternoon, the permanent memorial will be unveiled beside the bridge’s south entrance. Crowds will gather to learn of Johnson’s story and that of his two attorneys, who stood against racism and injustice.
The memorial project was a success in many ways, having gathered widespread community support. But, for those who led the charge, the work and the questions Johnson’s story highlights will not end Sunday.