CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA — The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center has selected Model of Architecture Serving Society (MASS), in partnership with artist Dana King, to lead the next phase of the Swords Into Plowshares project, a community-driven public art initiative that will transform the melted bronze from Charlottesville’s former Robert E. Lee statue into a new work of public memory.

The announcement was made on July 10-the 5th anniversary of the removal of the Lee Statue from Market Street Park. It follows an extensive public engagement process held between March 14-May 30, 2026, during which nearly 1,000 community members reviewed three finalist proposals and shared their preferences through a ranked-choice process. MASS’s proposal, ROOTED, was the first-choice selection for 64 percent of all respondents.

The announcement marks a major step for Swords Into Plowshares, a project rooted in the belief that Charlottesville’s story is not an isolated local episode, but part of a larger American story about race, memory, democracy, public space, and the ongoing struggle to tell the truth about the past.

For more than a decade, Charlottesville has stood at the center of national debates about Confederate monuments, racial violence, historical memory, and the future of public space. Swords Into Plowshares asks what comes after removal: how a community might transform a symbol of white supremacy into something that reflects shared values, public accountability, and the possibility of repair.

“We believe that the most impactful art emerges from genuine collaboration,” said Dr. Andrea Douglas, Co-Founder of Swords Into Plowshares and Executive Director of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center. “The extensive community engagement we’ve undertaken with input from so many diverse voices – has been absolutely vital to this project. We’re thrilled to be working alongside such an accomplished and thoughtful design team. I am confident that we will create something lasting and meaningful.”

MASS is widely recognized for its work at the intersection of architecture, public memory, justice, and community-centered design. Its portfolio includes major cultural, civic, health, educational, and memorial projects in the United States and abroad, including its work on the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. MASS’s Public Memory and Memorials Lab focuses specifically on helping communities design landscapes, memorials, and spaces of remembrance that confront difficult histories while creating room for reflection, gathering, and repair.

“In 2018, when the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center led a 100-person delegation from Charlottesville on a pilgrimage to the national lynching memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, we experienced first hand the powerful healing work of this design firm, MASS,” said Dr. Jalane Schmidt, Co-Founder of Swords Into Plowshares. “The Swords Into Plowshares project looks forward to collaborating with MASS in the community engagement process to transform Charlottesville’s public space to support our striving for multiracial democracy.”

Alongside the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, MASS will work with community members, descendants, local stakeholders, and artist Dana King to further develop ROOTED through a co-creative process. The next phase will include continued public engagement, design refinement, and collaboration around how the former monument material can be transformed into a work that is both locally grounded and nationally resonant.

“Opportunities like this are extraordinarily rare,” said Jha D Amazi, Principal of MASS’s Public Memory and Memorials Lab. “To transform the very material of a monument is to acknowledge that history cannot be erased, but it can be reimagined. We are deeply inspired by the courage and persistence of everyone who made this moment possible over the past decade, and we are honored to contribute to a future shaped not by inherited symbols, but by shared values and collective imagination.”

ROOTED envisions Market Street Park as a place of welcome, gathering, beauty, and belonging. Rather than replacing one monument with another in the traditional sense, the proposal imagines a public artwork and landscape that invites people into relationship with the site, with Charlottesville’s history, and with one another.

“ROOTED is designed to echo the spirit of welcome and belonging to Market Street Park,” said artist Dana King. “My hope is that in a few years, the park will be full of laughter and playfulness, conversations and dancing. Because then, ROOTED will have done what it was intended to do-bring all kinds of people together in comfort, creating something we can all be wildly proud of.”

Swords Into Plowshares began with a question that remains urgent far beyond Charlottesville: what should communities do with the material remains of monuments built to uphold false histories and racial hierarchy? In Charlottesville, that question carries particular weight. The city’s former Confederate statues became flashpoints in a national reckoning over public memory, white supremacy, and the uses of civic space. The removal of those monuments did not end that conversation; it opened a new chapter.

By selecting MASS, the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center is entering that next chapter with a design team whose work is grounded in collaboration, historical truth-telling, and the belief that the built environment can help communities confront harm while imagining something more just.

The project’s next phase will continue the community-centered approach that shaped the selection process. The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center will share additional opportunities for public participation as the design process moves forward.

Media Contact:

Dr. Andrea Douglas Co-Founder of Swords Into Plowshares JSAAHC Executive Director PHONE: (434) 688-5889 [email protected]

About the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center

The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center is a cultural institution in Charlottesville, Virginia, dedicated to honoring and preserving the rich heritage and legacy of the African American community of Charlottesville and Albemarle County. Through exhibitions, public programs, education, research, and community engagement, the Center interprets the past, engages the present, and helps shape a more just future. jeffschoolheritagecenter.org

About Model of Architecture Serving Society

MASS is a nonprofit architecture and design collective whose work advances justice, human dignity, and community well-being through the built environment. MASS works across architecture, landscape, public memory, research, and design, partnering with communities and institutions to create spaces that respond to history, support healing, and serve the public good. modelofarchitecture.org

About Swords Into Plowshares

Swords Into Plowshares is a community-led public art project that seeks to transform bronze from Charlottesville’s former Robert E. Lee statue into a new work of public art. Led by the JSAAHC, the project asks how materials once used to uphold a distorted and oppressive version of history can be recast into something that reflects truth, repair, democracy, and collective imagination. sipcville.com

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