June 28, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
Photograph by Tom Cogill
Freedom of expression is alive and well — and a little chalky — in Charlottesville, Va.
Residents can share what’s on their minds at the Community Chalkboard and Podium, an interactive monument designed both to honor the protections guaranteed by the First Amendment and give visitors a chance to exercise those rights.
The 54-foot-long wall is made of Buckingham shale from a nearby quarry and accompanied by a podium from which visitors can express their views.
The monument was built by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, in Charlottesville, and designed by local architects Pete O’Shea and Robert Winstead.
The media magnate John W. Kluge donated $125,000, half of what it cost to build the monument, while the rest of the money came primarily from small gifts by individuals and local businesses.
Mr. O’Shea says that since the monument was unveiled in April 2006, visitors have used the chalkboard to profess their love, advertise community events, protest the war in Iraq, create temporary works of art, and mourn the lives lost at Virginia Tech.
Sometimes people use profanity or write offensive messages on the chalkboard, which is cleaned twice a week to make room for new musings. But blunt language also embodies the First Amendment, says Mr. O’Shea, noting that the right protects everyone equally.
“It doesn’t pre-select what you can and can’t say, or can and can’t express,” he says. “We felt like a monument to that right had to allow for some of the potential rougher edges in order to allow for some of the really great things that can happen.”
Here, Mr. O’Shea shows off the Community Chalkboard and Podium, as a boy draws on the wall.
