T-shirts have been slowly disappearing over a period of time
By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news
Cassie Preskenis stood over a table methodically writing out names on white T-shirts with a black marker Sunday morning. To her left, Gina DuQuenne sat at a table doing the same. Under the shade of the pagoda in Railroad Park, the morning’s already rising heat was barely noticeable. Preskenis said it was the third or fourth Sunday in a row volunteers came to the park to slowly recreate the memorial for its fifth iteration.
The shirts had been disappearing slowly in the same way it happened last year, she said. The quiet removal counts as the fourth time the shirts have been vandalized.
The vandalism wasn’t the only reason to remake the memorial — it was time to get it cleaned up, Preskenis said. The flowers lovingly attached to the chain link fence behind Railroad Park when the Say Their Names memorial was originally created in the summer of 2020 were showing their age. Preskenis, DuQuenne and other Ashland residents volunteering their time had to work at it to remove old pipe cleaners and wires and shirts from the fence. Fluttering in a slight breeze along the chain link fence Sunday morning were 50 or so crisp white shirts with names written in clear simple black letters.
When the shirts are remade, volunteers can use the original Say Their Names memorial’s list of 200 Black Americans who lost their lives to racial violence, Preskenis said.
But, DuQuenne said without looking up from her pen, the list changes. She would be adding the names of two family members. Due to recent social media chatter opposed to the memorial, unlike previous rebuild efforts, Preskenis said they kept it quiet. Around 10 people helped.
Some Ashland residents have remarked on and offline that the shirts look decrepit or should be removed. One thread on Nextdoor social media site led to suggestions to organize and remove the shirts to clean up the appearance of the park, Prekensis said. Some say they don’t like the proximity to a children’s playground because of what the shirts represent.
Preskenis is chair of the Public Arts Advisory Committee in addition to her volunteer efforts with the memorial. She sometimes hears comments directed at the memorial sent to the commission, though the installation was not created with any involvement of the city or the committee. It has always been under the creative direction and maintenance of volunteers.
The Public Arts Advisory Committee is working with the organization Black Alliance and Social Empowerment to create a permanent memorial. The concept for the sculpture Ancestor’s Future: Crystallizing Our Call by artist Micah BlackLight has already been approved by the Public Arts Advisory Committee, Ashland City Council and Ashland Parks & Recreation. But the roughly $160,000 cost for the installation is an ongoing fundraising effort, Preskenis said.
Even when a permanent, more traditional form of public art takes up the T-shirt memorial’s message, many volunteers are dedicated to retaining them.
“This is about community, it’s not just about Black folks. … By any means necessary it’s staying up,” DuQuenne said.
The sight of this installation makes Black people feel “seen and safe,” she said. Black people don’t always feel that way in Oregon. She remembered people questioning her years ago about moving to Oregon as someone of color, and more recently taking her grandson to Beckie’s Cafe in Union Creek for some pie. As a visitor from out of state, he felt compelled to ask his grandmother in the privacy of the car, “Why were all those people staring at us?”
DuQuenne said she told her grandson to hold his head high and smile, that his talent and potential combined with his color made him a threat to those people. DuQuenne and Preskenis agreed that, for them, the memorial is another facet of a larger effort alongside others such as the Sunrise Project and its focus on Oregon’s history of sundown towns.
“I can’t wait until it’s all completed. I want to celebrate that,” DuQuenne said.
Those interested in learning more or assisting with the memorial can contact Ashland Together. Those who want to assist in the creation and installation of Ancestor’s Future can make a donation through the Ashland Parks Foundation.
Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected].
