Phoenix Civil Rights Memorial Timeline Update

The Phoenix Civil Rights Memorial (Peace) reflects the community's history within the context of the civil rights movement. The artwork, at Eastlake Park, 16th Street and Jefferson, consists of a small concrete amphitheatre covered by an arched steel canopy modeled after the Arizona state flag. It includes a timeline etched into stainless steel plates, denoting critical events in the civil rights movement (both locally and nationally) over the past 100 years.

The City of Phoenix is updating the final panel of the timeline on the memorial. A task force consisting of members from the city's advisory Human Relations Commission and Arts and Culture Commission are collecting public feedback to develop recommendations that the Mayor and City Council will review. The deadline to collect public feedback has been extended to June 30, 2021.

How to Participate

Community input is a valuable part of the process, especially as the timeline only has space to give snapshots of text to represent these important moments in national and Arizona civil rights history. The artists left room on the timeline to document key landmarks from the years 2000 to 2020.

What are the most significant national and Arizona milestones for civil rights in the past 20 years?

Let us know by:

Submitting a comment through an online form
Emailing PHX-AC@phoenix.gov or calling 602-495-0192 to leave a message
Mailing comments to: (postmarked by June 30, 2021)
City of Phoenix
Equal Opportunity Department - Memorial Timeline
200 West Washington Street, 15th Floor
Phoenix, AZ 85003
Sharing this information with your networks to reach more residents

The deadline to collect public feedback has been extended to June 30, 2021.

Unfortunately, due to the monument's nature, not all ideas generated can be used on the timeline. However, the task force will consider all ideas before recommending the most significant ones to add to the timeline's history. The updated timeline will be unveiled during the city's celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January 2022.

Created as a city public art project in 1997 by artists Ronn Turner and Shannon Owen, the Civil Rights Memorial includes a decade-by-decade timeline of important local and national civil rights milestones. The timeline includes:

major civil rights leaders (1991 Hispanic American Ed Pastor is the first minority from Arizona elected to the U.S.
Congress.)
key court decisions (1954 U.S. Supreme Court hands down the decision to abolish segregation in the schools in Brown v. the Board of Education.)
important legislation (1921 Arizona State Legislature passes the “Alien Land Act,” which denies Japanese aliens the right to own land in Arizona.)
major political events (1986 Governor Bruce Babbitt issues an executive order to declare a paid Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. In 1987, Governor Evan Mecham rescinds the order as a paid holiday, sparking marches on the State Capitol.)
significant milestones of social movements (1995 One million African American men march in Washington, D.C. for unity and self esteem.)
important historical context (1943 Phoenix Union Colored High School is renamed George Washington Carver High School.)

(The examples are taken from the current memorial timeline.)

Questions?

Please contact the Office of Arts and Culture at arts.culture@phoenix.gov or 602-262-4637.