Monument Lab is proud to partner with A Long Walk Home to support the building of an enduring monument to honor Rekia Boyd and Black Girlhood within Chicago’s Douglass Park in the North Lawndale neighborhood.
A Long Walk Home (ALWH) is an arts organization that empowers young people to end violence against girls and women. The Rekia Boyd Monument Project follows a decade of public art activations in and around Douglass Park by ALWH’s Girl/Friends Leadership Institute.
Together, A Long Walk Home and Monument Lab pose a central question: How do we build a monument that commemorates Rekia Boyd's legacy and celebrates Black girlhood?
The monument will be commissioned through an open call process for artists to collaboratively envision a public artwork and young women as citizen-artists in the process of building the monument. Interested artists are invited to review the project dossier, submit short question responses regarding their interest in the project, work samples, a CV, and contact information for two references through an online form by Thursday, July 31, 2025, 5:00 p.m. EST (4:00 p.m. CST).
Monument Lab staff will host a webinar covering project goals, community engagement strategies, and the selection criteria, and offering the opportunity to ask questions, will be hosted on Thursday, July 10th, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. EST (5:00 p.m. CST). A captioned recording of the webinar will be available online for those unable to attend.
Additional application support is available throughout the open call period by emailing [email protected]
The Rekia Boyd Monument Project is led by A Long Walk Home, in partnership with the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), Chicago Parks District, and Monument Lab, and is a part of the Chicago Monuments Project, which is supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.