A Monument Project in Tumultuous Times

On Saturday, February 1, the first day of Black History Month, a new public art piece was dedicated in Fort Worth. As its title suggests, East Rosedale Monument Project, by Christopher Blay, is more than a sculpture; it evokes the Mellon Foundation’s The Monuments Projects, a multi-year initiative aiming to tell a “more complete and inclusive” story of the U.S. The program was launched in 2020, when more public awareness was brought to issues around monuments across the country, many of which offer incomplete, and sometimes unreliable, information, and as a whole do not reflect the diverse experiences and histories of our country.

Eight years in the making, Blay’s piece is layered. The transformed vintage transit bus speaks to the significance and history of buses in the Civil Rights movement nationally, while also incorporating local narratives and voices. The work is positioned on a brick path between the sidewalk and East Rosedale Street in Southeast Fort Worth. It is down the street from a bus stop and across the street from Evans Avenue Plaza, a historical landmark filled with plaques honoring important leaders in the city’s Southside, a historically Black neighborhood. 

Christopher Blay, “East Rosedale Monument Project,” 2024

From the sidewalk, the metal bus features stripes of red, yellow, and orange, and silhouettes are painted onto the metal mesh that has replaced the windows. The shadowed figures feature profiles of young people involved in KEEN (Kids Environmental Education Network) Group, a program that enriches the neighborhood with environmental education, healthy activities, and arts programming. One aspect of KEEN’s programming is photography, and as an artist who got his start in photography, Blay had worked with the organization before and was eager to involve their students in this project.

There are many touchpoints with this project that resonate deeply with Blay. Growing up in Houston, the artist moved to Fort Worth in 1989 as a young adult seeking to strike out on his own. As a student at Tarrant County Junior College (now Tarrant County College), Blay assisted his professor, Peter Feresten, with a documentation project for the Lenora Rolla Heritage Center in the organization’s early days. 

Feresten, whose photographs are part of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art’s collection, had been embedded in the Southside neighborhood since the mid-1970s, photographing church services, Juneteenth celebrations, music performances, portraits, and more. Later, Blay would get to know the community better through a photojournalism series he embarked on when he served as Assistant Photo Editor of the Star Telegram. 

When Fort Worth Public Art announced the call for proposals for a public art piece on East Rosedale, Blay was excited to apply. Through his knowledge and experience of the area, he felt connected to the community and had a desire to create a lasting work of art that could speak to the neighborhood’s legacy. Blay, who recently was appointed as the Director of Public Programs at the National Juneteenth Museum in Fort Worth, told me that he was notified that he was a finalist for the public art piece on Juneteenth, 2014.

Public art can be a long process; it necessarily involves collaboration at every level. When done well, the end result is more than a physical work of art, it brings a community together in celebration. Aside from working with the KEEN students, Blay told me, “Bob Ray Sanders [a local journalist and Civil Rights leader], Brenda Sanders-Wise [the Executive Director of the Tarrant County Black Historical & Genealogical Society which is housed in the Lenora Rolla Center], Estella Williams [president of the NAACP’s Fort Worth/Tarrant County branch], Sarah Walker [Board President of the TCBHGS], and Johnny Lewis and Linda Cameron of the KEEN Group were advisors, storytellers, fact-checkers, and friends of this project from its inception.” 

The dedication ceremony for Blay’s East Rosedale Monument Project was perhaps one of the best-attended public art events in Fort Worth. Local artists, arts professionals, and community leaders and members showed up to revel in the piece and its significance.

Christopher Blay, “East Rosedale Monument Project,” 2024

Visitors to the structure can walk through cutouts of the bus or around it to view the other side. From the street, it is clear that the bus is just a shell and that the seats have been removed. Viewers can walk inside to see panels with photographs and text that speak about the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the history of Freedom Riders, and how buses played a role in the desegregation of schools. One section of text specifically addresses how inadequate busing played a part in revealing the inherent problems of the “separate but equal” clause, and includes a historic photograph of Black students who were the first to integrate Mansfield High School in 1956. Other panels speak to Civil Rights demonstrations in Fort Worth in 1965 and highlight local leaders like Opal Lee, who is known as “The Grandmother of Juneteenth” for her efforts to make the date a national holiday.

Words move across a digital sign hung inside of the structure. Like the silhouettes of local youth, this text highlights young people’s role in advocating for the future they deserve and memorializing the past that holds rich histories of resistance and beauty. Blay invited April Pelton, the 2023 Tarrant County Youth Poet Laureate, to compose a poem for the installation. Her writing is a love letter to the community. It reads:

My Southside, Our Community

A place abounding in love,
From the people around us to the skies above.
Where the smell of soul fills your nose,
And goodness are the seeds we sow.

This one street is connected,
Many others beautifully intersected.
For the community here is proud and bold
With inspiring stories deserving to be told.

In a tumultuous time when division is rampant and recent executive orders question the very idea of a democratic government of the people, by the people, and for the people, Blay’s newest public artwork reminds viewers of the history of resistance and resilience. It stands as a monument to the necessity of community organizing, persistence, placekeeping, and bearing witness to history.

Author’s Note: Since October 2024 I have served on the Fort Worth Art Commission, which provides guidance for Fort Worth Public Art. However, Christopher Blay’s piece was approved nearly a decade ago and completed in June 2024.