The Monumental Project

The Monuments Toolkit
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Welcome to The Monumental Project: How Historic Sites and Monuments of Yesterday Affect Us Today. As the official companion podcast of the Monuments Toolkit program, we will be diving deep into the pieces of American history found across the nation, and how the stories they carry impact the modern day American citizen. The goal of this podcast and the program at large, is to address the question “how do we address monuments of oppression?” What are our options for dealing with painful pieces of our past? How can we learn, heal, and move forward? By the end of this season we’ll have a better understanding. 

  1. 2D AGO

    Remembering La Matanza: A Conversation with Trinidad Gonzales and Benjamin Johnson

    This episode comes in a time of dire need for historical reflection and current action. Over the past few weeks, the Monuments Toolkit team, alongside the rest of the nation, has watched as anti-immigrant sentiments, deportations, and racial violence all reached new heights in the modern era. The events happening in Minneapolis today feel reticent of those in 2020 that led to the creation of the Toolkit and this podcast, including the murder of George Floyd and the summer of protests against oppressive monuments thereafter. However, we must also highlight the difference between the protests then and the protests now as this time our nation struggles to reconcile with its history of violence against the Latine community.  This history needs to be present in the monuments and sites landscape, but it largely remains absent. While we often discuss the need to remove bronze figures of oppression, we also must reinterpret the historic sites of violence to tell the stories of those lost, which is why today, we bring to you a special episode addressing our nation’s history of violence against Americans of Mexican descent in Texas. We’re meeting with Trinidad Gonzales, a history professor, descendant of La Matanza, and formerly a co-founder of Refusting to Forget; and Benjamin Johnson co-founder ofsx Refusing to Forget, a Texas-based non-profit dedicated to strengthening the collective memory of La Matanza and the history of racial violence on the Mexico-Texas border.

    1 hr

  2. JAN 28

    Commemorating Sites of Conscience with Ereshnee Naidu

    The process of commemorating a site with complicated histories can be a challenge. Whether you're looking to memorialize a tragedy or highlight the hidden history of a site popular for other reasons, there are several steps of care necessary to consider. Ereshnee Naidu, Executive Director of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, joins us today to tell us a bit more about how these sites can be properly cared for as well as what types of places qualify as a "site of conscience."

    31 min

  3. JAN 13

    Community Made Monuments with Ashley Edwards and Jose Vazquez

    Monuments are often designed by a single person or small team of people. The (Un)Set in Stone project defies that. Instead, the three initial creators of this monument pass the work onto the community of Montgomery, Alabama to define what monument represents them. Today, we're joined by Jose Vazquez and Ashley Edwards to talk about their work with this project and what it means for a monument to be community made. Credits Song Credits: Melancholy Lull by Vital Royalty Free Music: Bensound.com/royalty-free-music License code: GHSG4LYAWYBKBEES

    33 min

  4. 12/12/2025

    Making a Monument: A Conversation with Harmonia Rosales

    As often as we discuss monuments that have stood for decades or centuries, we rarely find the opportunity to discuss a monument just recently erected. In our final episode of 2025, we're excited to share a conversation with Harmonia Rosales, the artist of a new monument in Boston, Massachusetts entitled, "Unbound." Harmonia shares with us her artistic vision for the monument, how the project came to be, and what her overall ethos is as an artist that works with sculpture, paintings, and more.  Visit Harmonia's website at https://www.harmoniarosales.art/ Credits Song Credits: Melancholy Lull by Vital Royalty Free Music: Bensound.com/royalty-free-music License code: GHSG4LYAWYBKBEES

    24 min

  5. 11/07/2025

    The Columbus Episode: A Discussion with Shelly Corbin

    Statues of Christopher Columbus have been at the forefront of the debate on monuments in both the United States and all over the world. In the city of Columbus, Ohio, they launched the Reimagining Columbus project in order to determine what ought to happen with their statue and their city's legacy moving forward.  Today, we're joined by Shelly Corbin, an Indigenous Knowledge expert and a member of the Reimagining Columbus project. She tells us about how the project as wrapped up as well as about other monuments across South Dakota and her Lakota homelands.  Credits Song Credits: Melancholy Lull by Vital Royalty Free Music: Bensound.com/royalty-free-music License code: GHSG4LYAWYBKBEES

    50 min

  6. 07/10/2025

    The Hawaiian Monuments Landscape and the Captain James Cook Monument

    The Hawaiian monuments landscape offers important differences to the rest of the monuments landscape known throughout the continental United States. One of their contentious monuments is the Captain James Cook Monument, an obelisk that exists at the site where Cook was killed. In this episode, we talk with Shane Akoni Palacat-Nelsen, the President and Executive Director of Hoʻāla Kealakekua Nui, who shares with us the history behind this monument and what makes monuments in Hawaii unique.  Credits Song Credits: Melancholy Lull by Vital Royalty Free Music: Bensound.com/royalty-free-music License code: GHSG4LYAWYBKBEES

    50 min

  7. 06/13/2025

    "Whose Heritage?": A Conversation with the Southern Poverty Law Center

    Today, we’re joined by Rivka Maizlish, Senior Research Analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center to talk about the center’s most recent edition of the Whose Heritage? report. The Whose Heritage? report documents the progress in Confederate memorial removal over the last two years and provides an interactive map documenting where these monuments exist and their current status. This is the third edition of this report that SPLC has been creating since 2015 and includes information on Confederate memorials of all kinds, including monuments, schools and buildings named for Confederates, sites of Confederate history, and more. In our conversation, we discuss some of the highlights from this report and how individuals can get involved in the greater fight to remove oppressive monuments and memorials.  Read the Whose Heritage? report here. Learn more from the Community Action Guide. Credits Song Credits: Melancholy Lull by Vital Royalty Free Music: Bensound.com/royalty-free-music License code: GHSG4LYAWYBKBEES

    45 min

  8. 05/09/2025

    Kit Carson and Monuments of the West

    Many of our past episodes have focused on the South as the region with the most monuments of the Confederacy. However, the West isn’t immune from having controversial monuments as well. In this episode, we’ll turn our attention to the western United States, looking at Kit Carson and the controversial monuments that exist of him all around the wild west. We’re joined by Susan Lee Johnson, the Harry Reid Endowed Chair for the History of the Intermountain West at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her most recent book, Writing Kit Carson: Fallen Heroes in a Changing West, discusses this western figure and his evolving history as historians reconcile with his past. Credits Song Credits: Melancholy Lull by Vital Royalty Free Music: Bensound.com/royalty-free-music License code: GHSG4LYAWYBKBEES

    49 min
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About

Welcome to The Monumental Project: How Historic Sites and Monuments of Yesterday Affect Us Today. As the official companion podcast of the Monuments Toolkit program, we will be diving deep into the pieces of American history found across the nation, and how the stories they carry impact the modern day American citizen. The goal of this podcast and the program at large, is to address the question “how do we address monuments of oppression?” What are our options for dealing with painful pieces of our past? How can we learn, heal, and move forward? By the end of this season we’ll have a better understanding. 

Information

  • Creator
    The Monuments Toolkit
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    29
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Monumental Project
  • Show Website
    The Monumental Project