News
Chicago’s Next Monument Challenge
By History and Social Studies Department Co-Chair Anthony Shaker
Ideally, we erect monuments to honor our best, promote our truest values, mirror who we are and inspire us to lead better lives. However, monuments can often be a battleground over the stories we tell and those we overlook. Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said, in 2017, that public monuments “are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent reminders of a benign history.” Rather, they can often be historical emblems of power, privilege and, at times, hate. He was speaking about the removal of Confederate statues in New Orleans, challenging his citizens to see the pain monuments often inflict on people. Seventh graders recently tackled this issue in history class, seeking not to remove statues in the Windy City but rather to add overlooked and forgotten individuals to the monument landscape.
While Landrieu wasn’t referring specifically to Chicago, his statement nevertheless correlates with the 7th graders’ analysis of our city’s public monuments. The students catalogued all 73 of the city’s public statues, gathering data on the race, gender, occupation, nationality, ethnicity and time period of the monuments’ subjects. Some of the startling and troubling statistics they found: 93% were male, 84% were white, the majority lived in the 1800s, and nearly half were either politicians or soldiers. The students saw this as a problem, and they worked in teams to find nominees from underrepresented groups in a project titled Chicago’s Next Monument.
The teams first decided their criteria for potential nominees. They then searched far and wide for a pool of possibilities, narrowed them down to one individual who fit all their criteria. They researched to gather as much information about their person and wrote persuasive essays advocating for their nominee.
In years past, the students delivered their arguments in a live debate in front of a panel of judges. Even though that was an impossibility this year, the students still wanted to deliver their arguments in some way. Thus, they conducted this year’s Chicago’s Next Monument challenge virtually! Guest judges joined the Google Meet to listen to each group’s presentation before deliberating and selecting a winner for each section. Even though the students and judges were all in separate locations, the event still had the same passion and drama as if everyone was in the same room.
If you’re keeping score at home, the winners of the challenge and the next amazing people to grace Chicago’s parks would be...
Playwright Lorraine Hansberry
Environmental justice crusader Hazel Johnson
Journalist and civil rights leader Ida B. Wells
Scientist, inventor, and transgender activist Lynn Conway
Environmental justice crusader Hazel Johnson
Journalist and civil rights leader Ida B. Wells
Scientist, inventor, and transgender activist Lynn Conway
Francis W. Parker School educates students to think and act with empathy, courage and clarity as responsible citizens and leaders in a diverse democratic society and global community.