People

About Anson African Burial Memorial

Stephen Hayes grew up in Durham, North Carolina. At North Carolina Central University where he had planned to study mechanical engineering, he discovered his fascination with the arts starting with ceramics and venturing into graphic design.

At the Savannah College of Art and Design where he received his MFA, he explored sculpture and his thesis exhibition, “Cash Crop”, is still circulating over a decade later.

Hayes work center around finding beauty and understanding between himself, as a black male artist, and the nature of the object. His work fuses the past and the present, generally based on sociocultural and economic themes, highlighting American history as it relates to race, identity, and stereotypes in the areas of capitalism, commodification of beings, and the subsequent effects of cultural representation.

He recently unveiled a monument for the United States Colored Troops in the Cameron Museum in Wilmington, NC.

I feel honored to work on a project that acknowledges these individuals who were once natives to this property/land. The memorial will be a vessel that connects the past and the present to the rich history of this state. Although evidence of their physical bodies has naturally become a part of the soil, I hope that the fountain of cast hands and the water speak to the continuous cycle/flow of birth. Life and death.

— Stephen Hayes

Team

The Anson African Burial Memorial resulted from many meetings and many years of work . first from the Gullah Society and then from other groups of concerned citizens. Many of whose names are listed below.
Brenda Lauderback, the chairman of Denny’s, volunteered to head a group to fundraise for the project.  Nigel Redden, the former director Spoleto Festival USA, became project leader.

Ad Hoc Committee convened by Mayor Tecklenburg

  • Stephen Hayes

    Artist

  • Brenda Lauderback

    Chair

  • Nigel Redden

    Project Leader

  • Rick Jerue

    SALES MANAGERSenior Advisor to the Mayor, City of Charleston

  • Mike Whack

    Special Assistant to the Mayor, City of Charleston

  • Jason Kronsberg

    Parks Director, City of Charleston

  • Rodney Porter

    Parks Department, City of Charleston

  • Edmund Most

    Capital Projects, Parks Department, City of Charleston

  • Scott Watson

    Cultural Affairs Department, City of Charleston

  • Bernard Powers

    PhD, Director, Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston College of Charleston

  • Anthony Greene

    Co-chair, Committee on Commemoration and Landscapes, College of Charleston

  • Julia Eichelberger

    Co-chair, Committee on Commemoration and Landscapes, College of Charleston

  • R. Grant Gilmore III

    PhD, Director, Historic Preservation and Community Planning, College of Charleston

  • Joanna Gilmore

    Description goes hereAnson Street African Burial Ground Project

  • La’Sheia Oubre

    Description goes hereAnson Street African Burial Ground Project

  • Johanna Martin-Carrington

    Former Board Chair, The Gullah Society

  • Adrienne Carrington

    Civic Leader

  • Victoria Smalls

    Executive Director, Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor Commission

  • Latesha Smith

    Community Engagement Coordinator, Spoleto Festival USA

  • Mena Mark Hanna

    Description goes hereGeneral Director, Spoleto Festival USA

  • Nicole Taney

    Director of Artistic Planning and Operations, Spoleto Festival USA

  • Angela Mack

    Executive Director, Gibbes Museum of Art

  • Lissa Frenkel

    President and CEO, Charleston Gaillard Center

  • Tonya M. Matthews

    PhD, Chief Executive Officer, International African American Museum

  • Jonathan Green

    International Artist

  • Jerome Harris

    President, Association for the Study of African American Life and History

  • Brian Turner

    Director of Advocacy, Preservation Society of Charleston

  • Kelly Vicario

    Community Outreach Coordinator, Preservation Society of Charleston

  • Rev. Willie Hill, Jr.

    Rector, St. John’s Reformed Episcopal Church

  • Steve Dudash

    Director of Special Projects, Navy Yard Charleston

  • Darrin Goss

    CEO, Coastal Community Foundation

  • Melissa Levesque

    Vice-President, Coastal Community Foundation

  • Millicent Brown

    PhD, Historian

  • Minerva King

    Educator

Ad Hoc Committee convened by Mayor Tecklenburg

  • Deborah Kennedy Kennard

    Civic Leader

  • Maxine Smith

    Civic Leader

  • Cheryl Love

    Civic Leader

  • Jonathan Green

    Artist

  • Sandra Campbell

    Civic Leader

  • Rita Scott

    Civic Leader

  • Emily-Elise Martin

    Civic Leader

  • Josette Bailey

    Civic Leader

  • Karen Brewerton

    The Beach Company