Shaw 54th Regiment Black Soldiers Memorial Back In Boston After $3 Million Restoration
BOSTON (CBS/AP) — A monument honoring a famed Civil War unit of Black soldiers is back in downtown Boston, following a $3 million restoration.
The bronze relief at the center the Robert Gould Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial was hoisted back into place Wednesday morning on the Boston Common across from the State House with the help of a crane.
The relief has been undergoing restoration for months at a studio in Woburn. Crews have also been onsite working to restore the monument's marble and stone foundation. Officials say the project is on track to be substantially complete sometime next month.
Leslie Singleton Adam, the chair of the Friends of the Public Garden, told WBZ-TV the official dedication of the restored monument will be in the fall.
"The foundation was crumbling and falling apart. We were working on the restoration of the bronze. any weather event could've toppled it over. We put together a plan. We took the bronze piece off and offsite to Skylight Studios for restoration, a masonry company came into work on the base. It's been delayed but we are excited," she said.
"It's symbolic of social justice of the time, it's symbolic of freedom, and it's symbolic of a group of men who are absolute loyalists, patriots, and knew that they were fighting for more than just change, they were fighting for survival and freedom," Leon Wilson, the president and CEO of the Boston Museum of African American History, told WBZ Wednesday.
"It was a major move in the city of Boston. it's a recognition of its uniqueness of Boston as related to issues of enslavement and change. Not everyone was on board. It was symbolic of freedom and symbolic of men that were fighting for more than change."
Long considered one of the nation's greatest sculptures, the Shaw Memorial captures the stirring call to arms answered by Black soldiers who served in the unit, which was popularized in the 1989 Oscar-winning movie "Glory."
American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens spent 14 years creating the monument, unveiling it to fanfare in 1897.
But the work is also among those that has faced scrutiny amid last year's national reckoning on racism sparked by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
The sculpture depicts Shaw, the unit's white commanding officer, riding on horseback while his Black soldiers walk in the background, a dynamic that some suggest is problematic.
(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
