A broadly encompassing account of the International African American Museum's Ancestors' Garden designed by Walter Hood and its profoundly site-oriented development, and the museum's mission to illuminate the histories of the Africans forced into slavery. Memorial to Our Ancestors documents one of the twenty-first century's most remarkable sites devoted to social justice, American history, and cultural memory: the Ancestors' Garden at the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. Located on the former site of Gadsden's Wharf, the point at which nearly half of all enslaved Africans arrived in North America, the site is not only integral to the museum's mission to share the stories of the African diaspora, but also makes palpable the history of the location and the legacy of those who disembarked there through a multifaceted exploration of the landscape. Designed by acclaimed landscape architect Walter Hood, a 2019 MacArthur Fellow and newly named to the AD100, the development of the Ancestors' Garden came forth from an immersion in some of the most uncomfortable facts of American history. Drawing from the stories of sites in and around Charleston significant to the history of slavery and African Americans--starting with Sullivan's Island, where slave ships were held in quarantine before proceeding to Gadsden's Wharf, and ending at Mother Emanuel Church, the site of a 2015 mass shooting--Hood developed the key concepts to structure the museum grounds and this book. Published in partnership with the International African American Museum just ahead of its early 2022 opening, Memorial to Our Ancestors will not only serve as an important volume providing insight into the conceptualization and creation of a remarkable and deeply meaningful landscape, but also exemplifies Hood's cutting-edge practice of designing public spaces and cultural institutions that embody the African American experience.

The question "Do black landscapes matter?" cuts deep to the core of American history. From the plantations of slavery to contemporary segregated cities, from freedman villages to northern migrations for freedom, the nation's landscape bears the detritus of diverse origins. Black landscapes matter because they tell the truth. In this vital new collection, acclaimed landscape designer and public artist Walter Hood assembles a group of notable landscape architecture and planning professionals and scholars to probe how race, memory, and meaning intersect in the American landscape.Essayists examine a variety of U.S. places - ranging from New Orleans and Charlotte to Milwaukee and DetroitaEURO"exposing racism endemic in the built environment and acknowledging the widespread erasure of black geographies and cultural landscapes. Through a combination of case studies, critiques, and calls to action, contributors reveal the deficient, normative portrayals of landscape that affect communities of color and question how public design and preservation efforts can support people in these places. In a culture where historical omissions and specious narratives routinely provoke disinvestment in minority communities, creative solutions by designers, planners, artists, and residents are necessary to activate them in novel ways. Black people have built and shaped the American landscape in ways that can never be fully known. Black Landscapes Matter is a timely and necessary reminder that without recognizing and reconciling these histories and spaces, America's past and future cannot be understood.