The ABG site, which today is the resting place for the remains of more than 400 free Africans and slaves from the colonial period, was discovered in 1991 during the construction of a federal office building. Activists immediately rallied to preserve the historic site—which is among the oldest and largest African burial grounds in the nation, with some remains dating back to the 17th century—by writing letters and standing vigil to protect the space. Ultimately, a plan was devised to re-inter the excavated remains after study by a team from Howard University, placing the bones in wood coffins, with heads oriented to the west, in keeping with the tradition of the original burials.

“This building is a headstone for 20,000 bodies buried in downtown Manhattan,” says architect and activist Pascale Sablan, who worked on the ABG project as an intern—an eye-opening experience for the young professional, who is now a senior associate at S9ARCHITECTURE. “When you’re in school, you learn about making beautiful projects, architectural wonders. This kind of project makes a difference for a larger story,” she adds, speaking to the monument’s symbolic role of “providing justice to many, both alive and dead.”

A similar impulse was behind the creation of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened in Montgomery, Alabama, earlier this year after nearly a decade of work by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a nonprofit that challenges racial and economic injustice while fighting to end mass incarceration. Designed in collaboration with MASS Design Group and located in a city where Confederate monuments remain a common sight, the memorial honors and acknowledges victims of lynching in the United States, as well as the terror that violence created, while providing a forum to address the lasting effects of this shameful heritage. Looking to Holocaust and Apartheid monuments for inspiration, the Montgomery memorial attempts to give visitors a sense of the scale of these killings as a way to “expose the false narratives that have been told to justify what’s been done,” says EJI senior attorney Sia Sanneh, and to help contextualize the injustices that persist as a result of systematic racism.

While the graffiti at the African Burial Ground were quickly washed away and the alleged perpetrator charged, the call to action the act inspired is a reminder of the important role of these memorial spaces, not just as symbols of recognition and remembrance, but as forums for the conversations to move things forward.