“Absolute Equality” reimagines an approach to monuments and memorials to reflect the nation’s diversity better and highlight a story that was extensively buried or marginalized until 2020,” the project’s commissioned artist, Reginald C. Adams, said. “The storytelling space will give form and narrative to the beautiful, extraordinary, and powerful multiplicity, representative of one of America’s most influential and essential stories.”
The 5,000 square foot art installation displays five portals depicting an evolutionary narrative, including enslaved Africans being marched onto ships (including Esteban, the first nonnative enslaved person, who arrived shipwrecked on Galveston Island in 1528); Harriet Tubman, the leader of the Underground Railroad that ferried enslaved Black people to freedom north of the Mason-Dixon line; Abraham Lincoln holding the Emancipation Proclamation; Granger issuing General Order No. 3 on Juneteenth, flanked by Black Union soldier; and most notably a parade of people marching in pursuit of Absolute Equality. Significantly, the words in General Order No. 3, "absolute equality," is incorporated into the installation's graphics.
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Adams and his team of artists, known as the Creatives, created the permanent installation on the east elevation wall of the Old Galveston Square Building that overlooks the site (the former Osterman Building located at 22nd Street and Strand) of General Granger’s headquarters. Mitchell Historic Properties, the family of the late Cynthia and George Mitchell, owns the property. George Mitchell, a renaissance businessman and philanthropist, was a native of Galveston.
Currently, there is a simple plaque commemorating Juneteenth on the site where Granger issued the orders. The Juneteenth Legacy Project intends to sustain the art installation in perpetuity, one that provides a true legacy.
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Art Installation +
Storytelling Space.
