Boston Common Monument Rededicated In Wednesday Ceremony

BOSTON — The Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment Memorial was rededicated Wednesday morning, marking the end of a years-long restoration project.

The monument stands on the northern edge of Boston Common, across the street from the Massachusetts State House. It was given to the City of Boston in 1897 to honor the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry, one of the first African American regiments of the Civil War, and its Colonel, Robert Gould Shaw.

Keynote speakers at the rededication ceremony Wednesday emphasized the importance of recognizing the history of racism in the United States and honoring those who sacrificed their lives in hope of a better future.

"All that inequality and injustice and inequity that the 54th warred against remains in our time in a new form," Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, founder and director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, said during the ceremony. "The anti-slavery cause is now the anti-racist cause."

The Friends of the Public Garden formed a Committee to Save the Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial in 1981 after the monument had fallen into disrepair. It has been in the Friends' care since.

After severe water damage was found in the Memorial's core in 2015, the National Park Service joined the Friends and the City of Boston in a $2.8 million project to restore the Memorial.

"When we talk about the formation of this nation, we must recognize at what cost it has been to the Native American, to the enslaved African," Elizabeth Vizza, President of the Friends of the Public Garden said Wednesday. "We must tell these truths, and ... fully own their continued impact on how things are today, on the reality of today, in order that we can shape the tomorrow that we want to have."