Middle Passage project unveils R.I. sculpture: looking ahead in strength, not back in despair, artist says

Memorial Sculpture

The Bristol Middle Passage Port Marker Project (BMP) today unveiled and dedicated the Bristol Memorial Sculpture by Rhode Island School of Design artist and Professor Spencer Evans.

My wife and I were there. (All photos RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)

The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project comprises a network of ports of entry in the slave trade along the eastern and southern U.S. coasts from Maine to Galveston, Texas. The Bristol, R.I., chapter was organized in 2020, later incorporated as a nonprofit in 2023, by Elizabeth Sturges Llerena and Holly Wolf, descendants of the DeWolf family who spoke today. 

The DeWolf family trafficked more enslaved persons than any other in the United States. Llerena and Wolf's generation have committed to work on reconciliation and reparations since the family's history came under scrutiny in the 1990s. Their generation's journey—literally, including travel on the trade triangle form Bristol to Ghana to Cuba—was chronicled in the 2008 PBS documentary, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. DeWolf descendant Katrina Browne, who also was present at the unveiling today, produced and directed the film.

The sculpture sits under wraps before the dedication.

The Bristol Memorial Sculpture sits in Independence Park in Bristol, at the southern end of the East Bay Bike Path and northern end of Bristol Harbor. The sculpture means to fulfill the BMP mission, "acknowledging Bristol's history, and most importantly ... honoring the memory of all those harmed by the trans-Atlantic human trade," according to today's program. 

The project means to recognize both the enslavement of African persons, especially the Akan of Ghana, who are known to have landed at Bristol, and the enslavement and oppression of native Americans, specifically the Pokanoket, a Wampanoag people who lived where Bristol is today.

Prof. Evans speaks, his young daughter with her uncle at right.

The sculpture was selected from among finalists' models. Evans's winning design comprises three figures, an indigenous woman, an African man, and a child, cast in bronze. Evans worked on the sculpture at his Pawtucket, R.I., studio, and it was cast at Buccacio Sculpture Studios in Canton, Mass.

A narrative by Evans in the dedication program explained, in part:

Prof. Evans gestures upon the unveiling.

Both adult figures have their bodies turned toward Bristol Harbor, the first being a woman. The position of her body serves as a metaphor for the Pokanoket women who stood at the Cliffs of Sorrow waiting for their stolen families to return. The second figure, a man, symbolizes every African ancestor and descendant who possessed the viscerally sensational reminder that we are not in our homeland. However, both their gazes are fixed toward the child as the second adult points inland in the direction that the child is moving. The dynamically twisted posture of the adult figures also symbolizes the task of circumstantial endurance while possessing a radical love and hope for future generations, despite their reality of living in bondage, displacement, and oppression. The child figure also has a dynamic pose which is seemingly almost weightless in the movement, symbolizing the future generations who are carrying their ancestors with them as they are able to make constant attempts at living their dreams.

Prof. Freamon emcees.

A native of Houston, Tex., now resident in Providence, Evans was on hand and delivered a poetic address to mark the unveiling. He admonished the crowd that they would not see figures expressing fear or bound by chains, because "the spirit of despair" is not what should be passed on to future generations. Rather, he said, the sculpture means to communicate strength, love, hope, and affirmation of the future.

Explorers Monument

Curiously, or maybe fittingly, the new Memorial Sculpture sits across the main circle of Independence Park from Explorers Monument, a tribute to the Portuguese age of discovery.

Directors and advisers of the BMP board were in attendance today, and board president Bernard Freamon emceed. Roger Williams University Law Professor Freamon is a valued friend and colleague of my wife and me.

More than 150 people witness the dedication and unveiling in Independence Park.

Vietnam marks 50 years since fall of Saigon, but American corporations overshadow communism today

At Hoàn Kiếm Lake, Hanoi

Vietnam recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, and I visited Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to see the country today.

(All contemporary photos by RJ Peltz-Steele, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, with no claim to underlying works.) 

Known in Vietnam as "the civil war" or "the American war," the Vietnam War was a hot chapter in the Cold War story, as the United States sought to counter expansion of communism in Indochina.

The war was barbaric on the ground and devastating to life and land. Estimates range from one to three million civilian and military lives lost in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. More than 58,000 U.S. service members were killed. Land and wildlife were laid waste by lethal chemical defoliants, Agent Orange just one among them, inducing waves of cancer and birth defects. 

In the United States, veteran healthcare was overwhelmed by what would later be recognized as post-traumatic stress disorder. Meanwhile, the social turmoil of war protest shaped a generation of counterculture so powerful that it went mainstream, transforming law and society—even working as impetus in the development of modern First Amendment and transparency doctrine.

(For an anecdote from "the Hanoi Hilton" prison, see Analog propaganda proves persuasive to some at 'Hanoi Hilton,' where exhibits selectively whitewash war, The Savory Tort, July 30, 2025.)

Shipmate, the magazine of the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association, recently has published a series on the Vietnam War and its aftermath for veterans, "Legacy of Valor." The latest issue, July/August 2025, contains the fourth entry in the series and features USNA alumni stories.

The May/June 2025 Shipmate, which featured Marines' stories, also highlighted Vietnam War exhibits in the National Medal of Honor Museum (MOHM), which opened in Arlington, Texas, just in March. I was struck by similarities between MOHM—in the narrative and pictures, at least; I have not visited yet—and the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, where I visited in June. MOHM's largest artifact is a restored Bell UH-1 "Huey" helicopter donated by a veteran pilot; there's an American UH-1 Huey at the museum in Vietnam, too (with me below).

(Inset: Cover of Shipmate, March/April 2025, credited to Capt. Tom Murphy, USNA '66, USN (Ret.), depicting Murphy, at left, with his SEAL team in Vietnam in 1969. "Murphy was awarded a Silver Star for his actions that helped eliminate a heavily fortified Viet Cong camp on 2 March 1969," the magazine added.)

An American Huey UH-1H at the War Remnants Museum, Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, Hanoi

Saliently, the superpower United States lost the war, beating a humiliating retreat from the southern capital, Saigon. Vietnamese forces trumpeted the persevering efficacy of ruthless guerilla warfare. The sweep of communism crushed western collaborators and the remaining resistance and sparked a humanitarian crisis as refugees escaped to the sea.

Yet to walk the streets of Vietnam's major cities today, one could be forgiven for confusion over which side in fact won the war.

Ho Chi Minh City

The fall of Saigon—today, Ho Chi Minh City, though "Saigon" is still widely used, at least to refer to the touristic center, and "SGN" is the IATA code of the international airport—is celebrated on April 30. The contiguity of international labor day on May 1 makes for a holiday break.

This year, innumerable banners, signs, and monuments lined streets throughout the country to celebrate the 50th anniversary. I wonder at the cost. The posters bore patriotic illustrations that would be at home in a historical compilation of 20th-century Cold War propaganda.

Yet the banners stand juxtaposed against a background of signs demonstrating the market dominance of western corporations, namely the likes of Coca-Cola, KFC, and ubiquitous 7-Elevens. 

A local guide who took me to the Cu Chi tunnels, from where Viet Cong guerilla fighters waged brutal resistance against American forces from underneath a great swath of the country, told me how his family lost their home and modest wealth and fled Saigon when all property was nationalized after the communists took over the south.

Communism never delivered on its promises, he said. When his father returned to the family home, he found it occupied by party apparatchiks, hardly "the people." Still today, he said, despite commercial development, Vietnamese people suffer poverty, grade-school-limited public education, and no universal healthcare. That's not much to show for a communist people's victory.

"We hate Americans," he joked, smiling. He explained that the regime, apropos of the classic propaganda-poster style of the 50th anniversary images, still teaches schoolchildren to hate America. But people know better and have "moved on," he said. "Now we drink Starbucks."

It occurred to me, insofar as corporatocracy is the measure of the day, it's maybe truly representative democracy that lost the war, both in Vietnam and in America. 

Lunar-new-year commemorative beer from Budweiser, for sale at shop, Mỹ Tho

Roadside signs, Ho Chi Minh City

Billboards, Ho Chi Minh City

Exhibit at War Remnants Museum, Ho Chi Minh City

Marker at Hoàn Kiếm Lake, Hanoi

Exhibit at Thăng Long Imperial Citadel, Hanoi

 

Marker in traffic circle, Hanoi