Monument to What? will address the complicated history behind the monument to Dr. J. Marion Sims located in Central Park at 103rd and Fifth Avenue. In recent years calls for its removal have centered on the fact that it ignores how Sims exploited enslaved women for his medical research. Similar disputes are currently underway in cities across the nation in response to 18th, 19th and early 20th century monuments that celebrate slaveholders, racists, Confederate soldiers and corrupt politicians. Click here to learn more.
Monument to What? A Panel Discussion
Friday, October 7th, 2016 from 6:30-8:30 pm
Project: ARTSspace, 156 Fifth Ave. @ 20th St., Suite 308
Speakers:
- Harriet A. Washington, author of Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
- Heather Butts, MA, JD, Health Policy Management Department, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
- Artist and designer Xenobia Baily
- Laundromat Project 2016 Create Change Fellowship artists Vanessa Cuervo, Autumn Robinson, Rahviance Beme and Terence Trouillot
- East Harlem Preservation founder, writer, and activist, Marina Ortiz
Monument to What? is organized by the Institute for Wishful Thinking as the final public event for the exhibition Making Progress. Closing celebration to follow panel discussion.