“Unearthing Boldness”
Honoring the Life and Legacy of Bessie Smith

This artistic sculpture marker is a beautiful embodiment of shape and form symbolizing strength, joy, and resilience. Offered as a community healing resource to unearth the bold spirits of Blue Goose Hollow and Bessie Smith. It communicate messages to acknowledge the Black experience and history of struggle and resistance, and will hopefully encourage new residents and merchants to shift their narratives and beliefs about all the people who have been displaced from this land then and now.

Made of solid black and coated black materials to represent the survival and adaptable nature of Black People, their life and death in the shadow of capitalism, and their remarkable global contributions of creativity and innovation.

Artist Josiah Golson offered “The Story of Blackness” an evocation of form, identity, and place to accompany the artwork. The poem was co-created with community and is a beautiful representation of one voice inspired and informed by many voices to honor ancestral roots. (Click to experience)