One Hundred Voices

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  Student Voices: The Commonwealth Monument Project

  Chloe Dickson and Anna Strange

  This is the third in a series of blog posts from students who participated in publicly engaged humanities projects funded through Humanities Research for the Public Good (HRPG) grants from the Council of Independent Colleges, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In this post, Chloe Dickson and Anna Strange of Messiah University write about the Commonwealth Monument Project, which brought together students, staff, faculty, and community members to tell the stories of 100 agents of change who are featured on the monument itself.

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  Do You Know Me?: The Intergenerational Quest for 100 Distinguished Voices of Harrisburg's African American Community

  Katie McArdle, Jean Corey, and David Pettegrew

  The Commonwealth Monument Project and Digital Harrisburg Initiative joined together to search for descendants of the 100 Voices of the Commonwealth Monument using “Harvesting Harrisburg History” postcards that featured their names, addresses, birthyear and birthplace, occupations, and family members. Over the next several weeks, 50 descendants were connected with their African American ancestors from the Old Eighth Ward, several of whom contributed to the project's continuation.

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  One Hundred Voices: Harrisburg's Historic African American Community, 1850-1920

  Lenwood Sloan, Ellis Anderson, Olivia Bardo, Sarah Becker, Britney Brautigam, Mary Braxton, Christine Bye, Hayley Cook, Jean Thompson Corey, Cate Cutting, Chloe Dickson, Molly Elspas, Charlotte Splawn Glover, Katie Heiser, Famatta Hne, Matt Jenkins, Isabel Gonzalez, Dylan Goss, Haley Keener, Nicole Kreimer, Adriana Lima, Amber Luster, Ashley Mathew, Katie Wingert McArdle, Sarah Myers, David Pettegrew, Joshua Reid, Mary S. Williams Richardson, Amalia Robinson, Sam Rockhill, Alexis Sheely, Ellissa Slader, Janelle Soash, Leiby Soto, Isaiah Stoy, Anna Strange, Lydia Tamrat, Annie Thorne, Laura Cannon Williams, Sharonn L. Williams, and Calobe Jackson Jr.

  In 2020, a coalition of citizens, organizers, legislators, and educators came together to commemorate the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments by establishing a new monument in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. This would be a memorial dedicated to the capital city’s significant African American community and its historic struggle for the vote. The Commonwealth Monument, located on the Irvis Equality Circle on the South Lawn of Pennsylvania’s State Capitol Grounds, features a bronze pedestal inscribed with one hundred names of change agents who pursued the power of suffrage and citizenship between 1850 and 1920.

  This book is a companion to this monument and tells the stories of those one hundred freedom seekers, abolitionists, activists, suffragists, moralists, policemen, masons, doctors, lawyers, musicians, poets, publishers, teachers, preachers, housekeepers, janitors, and business leaders, among many others. In their committed advocacy for freedom, equality, and justice, these inspiring men and women made unique and lasting contributions to the standing and life of African Americans—and, indeed, the political power of all Americans—within their local communities and across the country.

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  Do You Know Me? Postcard Collection

  Rachel Williams and Mary Culler

  The Commonwealth Monument Project and Digital Harrisburg Initiative sought to find the descendants of 100 African American men and women of the Commonwealth Monument using these “Harvesting Harrisburg History” postcards that featured their names, addresses, birthyear and birthplace, occupations, and family members.