Freedom Corner: a Guided Tour

James Ray Polk, Architect --- double-click for higher resolution


Foot-Soldier's Fountain greets the new visitor at the corner of Martin Luther King Drive and J.C. Killingsworth Avenue as a tribute to the "foot-soldiers" of the civil rights movement. The leaders and organizers may have more familiar names, but daily small acts of faith, support, and personal sacrifice by millions of people gave the movement its momentum.

Enter the memorial and look to your right. You'll see a procession of 12 kiosks - or "Pillars" - each representing an individual pillar of strength in the struggle for civil rights in Hattiesburg. Mounted on each kiosk is an interpretive painting of each pillar, and viewers may access oral histories of each individual. As you walk along, you'll notice that the path is uphill, a metaphor for the struggle.

Then there's the Brick Wall. In one of our programming sessions, an eloquent elderly woman who lived through the civil rights era said "No matter what we did, they just kept putting up brick walls. Every time we'd get past one, they'd put up another. That brick wall just kept getting higher and higher." Notice the brick wall as it grows higher and higher along the procession of pillars until, after the 12th pillar, the wall turns and opens - roughly, with bricks falling away - blown open by a mighty wind as a portal to "the other side."

And on the other side, a joyous explosion of sights and sounds. In an open-air room, designed with sound-bouncing concave concrete walls for acoustic exuberance, the sound of celebratory freedom songs fill the space along with a circular mural of larger than life-size "pillars of the movement."

In the center of the room, you'll find a reflective sphere. As you are feasting on the jubilant sounds of gospel choirs, you'll find yourself gazing into that sphere, and you'll see the leaders of the civil rights movement reflected side by side in the background. But in the foreground, undeniably - it's you.

I'm calling this space "Reflections of Freedom."

To find out more about Freedom Corner, go to the new official website: JCKFreedomCorner.com. We'll soon have instructions on how you can make a tax-deductible donation to this project. Yes, you can be a part of manifesting J. C. Killingsworth Freedom Corner.

Freedom Corner: America's Newest Civil Rights Memorial

Double-click on image for higher resolution

Fresh off the drawing board, here it is - the design for J.C. Killingsworth Freedom Corner, a memorial to honor civil rights activists who led the non-violent (at least on their end) struggle in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Hattiesburg was "ground zero" for much of the persecution of African-Americans in the 1960's. Clyde Kennard, who tried to register at the University of Southern Mississippi (then Mississippi Southern College) five years before James Meredith broke the color barrier at Ole Miss, was framed by the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission and sent to Parchman Penetentiary where the contracted cancer. Left untreated, Kennard died weeks after being released.

Vernon Dahmer, another Hattiesburg civil rights leader, was killed in 1966 when his house was firebombed by the KKK.

The memorial's namesake - Rev. J.C. Killingsworth - has often been referred to as Hattiesburg's Martin Luther King, as he organized and led marches of silent protest throughout the 1960's. Appropriately, Freedom Corner is located at the intersection of Martin Luther King Avenue and the newly renamed J.C. Killingsworth Drive.

Walking: An Experience - Not An Afterthought

photo: Samantha Montague, Student Printz Newspaper


It is particularly rewarding to open a newspaper and see a photo of one of your designs taken by someone you don't know for the purpose of painting a beautiful picture of the character of a space.

A few years ago, I designed a pedestrian plaza in the center of campus at the University of Southern Mississippi. The idea was to define a critical series of spaces in the middle of campus transforming an automobile-scaled space into a human-scaled space while creating an area that, in spirit, would become the heart and soul of campus.

Ironically, this space was always a pedestrian thoroughfare. Between classes, students took over the streets as cars inched along narrowly avoiding running over crowds of students flocking to the next class. The experience of getting from here to there was 100 percent functional; there was no "there" between the there and there.

On any design project, I always spend a great deal of time on-site before putting pencil to paper taking in -watching, listening, feeling - the local conditions. Organic and sustainable design is very site specific. No matter how nice the design studio, there's really no substitute for "being there."

On one such observation session, as students flooded the streets, the image of a cattle drive came into mind. If not in person, you've seen this iconic image in Western movies. A sea of cattle mingle between the high-sitting cowboys. "Git along, little dogie."

The solution, in this case, was to bring the edges in. Cars were routed around the center campus to clarify the pedestrian flow. Formerly undefined roadway curbs became brick knee-walls carving out planted areas that sculpt a more intimate space for students to move through and gather. In addition to softening the space with seasonal foliage, these short walls serve as benches, set at sitting height with inviting curved tops, for the purpose of providing students multiple (and random) places to "hang-out" - and they do.

Brick, the predominant material, was woven in a herringbone pattern for warmth and texture. The fountain (in the distance) adds moving water to the mix and serves as a focal element. A clocktower, yet unbuilt, was designed to spring up from the middle of the fountain basin gushing water into the pool. (Anyone want to put their name on a clocktower? I'll get you the mailing address for your check. A million bucks will do in a pinch - two million is better.)

In keeping with the idea of user-friendliness, the walls of the fountain were also designed for sitting. Last summer, I witnessed the delightful sight of a group of highschool cheerleader-campers sitting around the fountain - face in - with bare feet splashing and giggling all 'round. That's what I call an inviting space.

Some have commented that "this is not really an architectural project" as there are no "buildings" involved, clocktower notwithstanding.

But I think it is Architecture. I believe design is about the quality of the space; the building form and detailing is secondary. It's about how that space interfaces with and facilitates the human conditon. Walls and roofs are just tools in the box for carving out spaces that resonate with the human spirit - not by any means an end in themselves.