Concord250 Permanent Memorial Goals
The Concord250 Permanent Memorials Subcommittee has spent many months reflecting on the ideals that motivated those who fought for freedom in the battle of April 19, 1775, and how these can best be expressed in projects to mark the 250th anniversary of this event. We have focused on potential initiatives that accomplish a multifaceted goal: honoring the past while elevating the critical concerns of the present and looking ahead, with hope and conviction, to the future.
After a careful process of listening, research, and deliberation involving feedback at various public gatherings and as specified in the charge of the Concord Select Board, we are pledged to highlight those whose stories have historically been overlooked, particularly as they relate to the ongoing struggle to truly live by our country’s guiding principles of liberty and justice for all.
We are proposing three initiatives that will accomplish these goals in meaningful and lasting ways. These represent three themes that emerged as the highest priorities in memorializing this pivotal moment in American history:
- Siting a Permanent Memorial celebrating the struggle for social justice,
- Planting trees to create a more sustainable Concord,
- Honoring those who have served our country.
Celebrating the struggle for social justice will be the driving concept behind a new public greenspace on Monument Square, to be constructed on the currently unused portion of “Parcel 1693,” a parcel of land gifted to the Town in 1900 as a commemoration of the 125th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution. At the heart of democracy is the belief that liberty, equality, and dignity are essential rights of all people. Over the past 250 years Americans have expanded, through protest and struggle, our understanding of what freedom and justice for ALL really means. We, the people of Concord, on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution, choose to celebrate that. In this reflective space, a permanent memorial will be created to commemorate those who worked for social justice and individual freedom, but whose voices have not always been heard, honored, or remembered. By elevating the lives of trailblazers – including women, Black, Indigenous, and people of color – and reflecting on how their work and words remain relevant today, the memorial will honor their legacies and inspire current and future generations to continue to strive for freedom and justice, no matter the cost.
Planting trees to create a more sustainable Concord will be manifested in an ambitious, community-wide tree planting project through which the town and its residents will plant 250 trees along our streets and in our public places and further our community’s commitment to a more sustainable future.
Honoring those who have served our country will be the focus of several initiatives, including processing a treasure trove of documents in the Special Collections of the Concord Library pertaining to the Concord men and women who have served in the military; marking the gravesites of Concord’s Revolutionary War veterans previously unrecognized on Memorial Day; and publicly honoring those Concordians who died in the American Revolution. After 250 years, this is the first such recognition of these fallen soldiers now identified thanks to the research efforts of the Concord250 Committee.
For more about the Permanent Memorial Project: https://concordma.gov/3609/Concord250-Permanent-Memorial-Project
For more about the Concord250 Tree Project: https://concordma.gov/3610/Concord250-Trees-Project