Savannah is a picturesque, coastal Georgia town with a colorful history- Many--of its streets and buildings are old-style European brick or cobblestone. It has one of the biggest St. Patrick's Day parades in the country, because of the large Irish population. And it has unique and plentiful African-American communities. More than 50% of the residents are Black. The plan to build a monument dedicated to the Black population's ancestors has several community leaders offering divergent opinions.

A panel from the city's Historic Site and Monument Commission approved construction three years ago. At first, some city leaders wanted the monument put in or near a church. The final plan placed it at the town's riverfront where more than 100,000 people visit each year.

The plan started with and continues under the leadership of one woman, Dr. Abigail Jordan. Although she won't tell you her age, she will let you know she's been around long enough to know when it's time for things to change. Adding the monument to Savannah's riverfront is the only thing she's wanted to change. So she's spent 10 years spearheading an organization dedicated to making that happen.

"I was the one that had the head they speared," Jordan said. "When I look back, I was such a fool. I thought it would be easy."

Dr. Jordan claims it took a decade to get plans for the monument approved because of personal power plays and a segregated racial legacy that still permeates some aspects of Savannah's politics. She said she didn't start out with the idea of getting a monument built. She first wanted something a lot simpler.

“I like to walk down by the riverfront and I was walking one day and I saw that there was nothing down here about Black folks. I thought, maybe I'll do a little something down here and nobody would know it." Jordan said. It wasn't that easy. She went to the city clerk and filled out a form. That was in 1991. The response to her request came back in 1992 and directed her to the City Manager. She explained her request. She says, Floyd Adams told her the Hyatt-Regency owned the site she wanted for her 'little something.' So Jordan visited the Hyatt. She says the manager at the Hyatt-Regency said the property she wanted to use belonged to the city. According to Jordan, that's when she knew she had a fight on her hands. She wasn't going to shy away from it.

Jordan earned her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Georgia in 1979. She says she's gotten runarounds before in her life. In 1992, she felt she was getting one again. So Jordan took her cause to the City Council. The City Manager, who, she said, gave her inaccurate information about riverfront land-ownership, was now a City Councilman. He convinced Savannah's mayor to send Jordan's request to the Historic Site and Monument Commission, but there was a problem--it didn't exist.

"There was no committee. It was inactive," Jordan said. "There were five people on it. I was told one person was very good, but she wasn't available for some reason. The other had moved out of Savannah. Another was deceased. That left two. It takes three to make a committee and then one quit. I had to wait months and years for them to make a Historic Committee. This one petered out."

Jordan says while the Savannah City Council took its time creating a Sites and Monument Committee, she gathered support for her project. She established the Savannah African-American Monument Association and had a complete agenda for the first group to hear her proposal. All of them where White. When they rejected her first petition, she taunted them.

"I think I upset them. I said, 'look at you sitting up there...please, can we have one little monument? You have 43. I think that was around '95," Jordan said. After that it was a matter of persistence. Jordan kept submitting and refining her proposal until it earned Sites and Monument approval in 2000.

Lisa White, current director for Savannah's Sites and Monument Committee, says she's not sure whether the first committee to hear Jordan's proposal rejected it or told her to go back and get it revised. She said Jordan was sent to the Savannah College of Art and Design to put together a design for the monument. That took time, as did finding a better riverfront location for the structure.

Sculptor, Dorothy Spradley, was-chosen as the person, who would create the piece.

"The upper part of the sculpture will be made of bronze with a base of granite," artist Spradley said. "Since it will be on the riverfront it has to be able to withstand 100mph winds. So these materials are the most weather resistant." Jordan says she's let other committee members come up with design ideas for the monument. However, she's very pleased with what artist Spradley has created. Art renditions show an African-American family consisting of a man woman and two children. At the base are hands in broken chains. Commissioner White said getting the right design was one reason the project took so long to approve, but she admits there have also been people in power opposed to  the project.

"This is an omission that has not been taken care of, in not having an African-American monument. I think the players involved have not been the most receptive to change. I think it's come to a good stage now," White said. After White's commission approved the monument design and inscription, the project went to the city council for final approval.

That didn't happen, at first. Savannah's mayor, and several other council members, didn't approve of the selected inscription. The passage partially reads, "We lay back to belly in the holds of the slave ships in each others' excrement and urine together, sometimes died together, and our lifeless bodies thrown overboard together."

White says the phrase in question is attributed to writer Maya Angelou, but no one could find it published. Angelou gave permission to use the phrase on the monument, saying that she had used the passage in lectures for nearly 15 years, but never published it in a book or poem.

Black City Councilman David Jones has been quoted as saying the inscription is too far out, but City Council member Clifton Jones, Jr., also Black, defends it. "My point on the whole thing is, if it happened, it happened, you see. The statement is a true statement, whether or not Maya Angelou wrote it," Clifton Jones said.

If Jordan can clear approval from the Savannah City Council she can begin the process of raising more money for the project Mist Spradley says the completed monument is estimated to cost $350,000. Councilman Clifton Jones says the City has agreed to provide $30,000 of preliminary work to move a fountain and reinforce the ground for the monument. The rest of the funds will have to come from private donors.

"It's going to be a public project." Clifton Jones said. "The City does not build monuments. There are 43 monuments in the City, and they were all built by private donors." It's a daunting task, but Dr. Jordan is optimistic about living to see it completed.

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