From George Floyd to Pauli Murray: Read their words at new NC Freedom Park

Quotes said by North Carolinians — from George Floyd to Anna Julia Cooper, Pauli Murray to John Hope Franklin — are permanently etched in a new destination in downtown Raleigh.

North Carolina Freedom Park, which honors the African American experience and struggle for freedom, opened on Wednesday. Situated on the block between the governor’s mansion and the Legislative Building, it’s meant to be a “timeless tribute to the universal ideals of liberty, resilience and equality.”

It is open from dawn to dusk every day, and the public art centerpiece, the 50-foot-tall steel Beacon of Freedom, will be lit at night. School children are the most frequent visitors to the state Capitol grounds, which does not have an African American monument, and perhaps will also be to Freedom Park a few blocks away.

The park officially opened with a ceremony Wednesday morning attended by hundreds of people, including Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, Democratic and Republican state lawmakers and supporters of the project in the works for about 20 years.

North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green read a new poem, saying in part:

“We are this resilient light. We are all the ones here. We are all the ones here now. We are all this beacon.”

Aside from the Beacon of Freedom, the park has quotations about freedom from 20 North Carolinians inscribed on the walls the color of red clay along several walkways. Here are some of the Voices of Freedom:

George Floyd

“I can’t breathe.”

Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, and his death sparked a summer of protests across the United States in 2020.

Pauli Murray

“It has taken me almost a lifetime to discover that true emancipation lies in the acceptance of the whole past, in deriving my strength from all my roots, in facing up to the degradation as well as the dignity of my ancestors.”

Murray, who grew up in Durham, was a human rights, women’s rights and civil rights activist as well as a lawyer, poet and the first African American female Episcopal priest. She is also an Episcopal saint.

Harriet Jacobs

“When they told me my new born babe was a girl, my heart was heavier than it had ever been before. Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.”

Jacobs was born into slavery in Edenton, eventually escaping after hiding in an attic for seven years before going north. The quote is from her autobiography, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.”

Abraham Galloway

“I am looking for the rising generation. ... there must be a deep foundation laid for the coming generation.”

Galloway was a Union spy and recruiter during the Civil War after escaping slavery in North Carolina. He went on to be a state senator, and his portrait hangs in the Senate chamber at the Legislative Building.

Lyda Moore Merrick

“My father passed the torch to me, which I have never let go out.”

Moore Merrick’s father was Aaron McDuffie Moore, who was the first Black physician in Durham and co-founder of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company. She worked with the Federation of Negro Women’s Clubs and was founding editor of The Negro Braille Magazine.

Voices of Freedom at the park

There are several more quotations from John Hope Franklin, Robert Hamilton, David Walker, John W. Pratt, Anna Julia Cooper, the Rev. James Walker Hood, James E. Shepard, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Golden A. Frinks, John H. Wheeler, Ella Baker, Julius Chambers, Maya Angelou, Phil Freelon and Paul Green.

You can read them at the park, 218 N. Wilmington St., or on on the N.C. African American Heritage Commission website.

Another, unrelated project also focuses on Black history in North Carolina. The long-stalled African American monument on the state Capitol grounds awaits $3 million in potential funding from the state budget. Cooper’s budget and the Republican-written Senate budget have both proposed funding the monument, but the final version of the 2023 state budget is not expected until September.

Cooper told reporters Wednesday he believes “we need the monument on the Capitol grounds as well.”