The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), recently published Landslide 2024: Demonstration Grounds, a report and digital exhibition about thirteen sites of significant protests in American history where the protests and acts of civil disobedience are at risk of fading from public memory, or worse, being forgotten. For the past twenty years, TCLF’s annual thematic report and digital exhibition has focused on threatened landscapes and landscape features. In a break with tradition, this year’s Landslide focuses on events at thirteen sites across the country and the extent to which online, on-site, and other forms of interpretation keep the stories of those events alive, including events connected with Civil Rights, Native American rights, gay rights, Chicano rights, disability rights, urban renewal, anti-Vietnam War activism, sovereignty, self-determination, and fair representation. Each site entry includes newly commissioned photography and recommendations for how to make the stories more visible.
Protests, civil disobedience, and dissent are not only a defining part of our shared history since the Colonial era, but they also continue to the present day on campuses, at political conventions, and elsewhere. Indeed, the rights to freedom of speech and peaceable assembly are guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Some historic marches, sit-ins, and other actions such as the March on Washington in 1963 and the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965 are enshrined in our collective narrative, while others have faded from memory. Though the cultural landscapes that served as a stage for these events still exist, the events that took place may not be well-recognized and interpreted.
In past Landslide designations TCLF has placed an emphasis on three guiding principles and calls to action: “make visible, instill value, and engage.” The first of those three – make visible – is at the core of Landslide 2024: Demonstration Grounds and the report’s themes, which address the need for: on-site interpretation, including the identification of “witness trees” and similar landscape features; online interpretation; historic designation (e.g., National Register of Historic Places, National Historic Landmarks), or the expansion of the periods of significance of existing designations; and stewards’ mission and vision statements that too often devalue the protest events by overlooking or ignoring their presence as part of the landscape’s significant legacy.
“These demonstration sites possess a unique power of place because they serve as reminders that they were the stages for those events where it happened,” said Charles A. Birnbaum, TCLF’s President & CEO. “Each of the thirteen sites in this Landslide report is embedded with environmental and cultural characteristics that provide visual and sensory connections to the past, which heighten our individual and collective experiences and serve as critical reminders that peaceful acts of public protest can alter the course of history.”
The Landslide 2024: Demonstration Grounds includes various sites including Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, CA; Biscayne Bay, Miami, FL; Grant Park, Chicago, IL; Independence Mall, Philadelphia, PA; Pike Place Market, Seattle, WA and many more. You can find out more about each site at https://www.tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/landslide2024/index.html
