RODNEY LEON

UNSUNG HEROES- RODNEY LEON

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RODNEY LEON AND HIS AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND MEMORIAL...

Bon soleil all,

Back on June 18th 2005, I headed to NY for a day to attend an award party hosted by Haitian American Alliance. Four having made a difference in our community were being honored by the organization: Wyclef Jean-Micheline Cadet Duval,Jean-Claude Garoute-Tiga, and---RODNEY LEON.

The other three I had heard about prior to the event. Rodney Leon I met that night and-his life story is one filled with excitement, travels and-accomplishments.

His architecture works have involved handed proposals for memorials for the likes of Frederic Douglas- Martin Luther King and the Freedom Crossing Memorial…

Leon's proposal was chosen over sixty-one offers-and five semifinalists to end up winning the design contract in 2004. At the time of the June event Leon was being applauded for this most remarkable project…

Leon was commissioned to create, design and oversee the ‘Ancestral Libation’ Chamber of the African Burial Ground memorial in Manhattan.

RODNEY LEON is a Haitian-American Yale-trained architect from Brooklyn, who is President and co-founder of AARRIS Architects. With a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt and a Masters of Architecture from Yale University, Leon stands tall to fill this truly amazing and worthy project. Nicole Hollandt-Denis, is the other half of Aarris Architects PC.

"Our generation has been entrusted with this awesome responsibility and we're honored."

“These people were part of a worldwide network of slavery, and they helped the New York economy run and thrive,” Rodney Leon said.

Having been chosen to design and create the permanent memorial for the African Burial Ground even as a bystander I feel wonderfully proud of his accomplishments- I can imagine the emotions going through his own family.

"The African Burial Ground represents a unique opportunity and responsibility for all of us to tell our story to the world and to specifically honor the memories of the ancestral Africans,"

"We had certain objectives that we established early on that were guiding principles for how the memorial was developed,"

"One was to establish the site as a sacred site. Whatever we designed needed to have a sense of sacredness about it, so ritual and spirituality needed to play a role.

Oh boy, what a design it is! It is like walking into the far future yet-wrapped in total familiarity. He incorporated meticulous ethnic details without sacrificing aesthetics and artistic visuals.

The monument was to originally have cost three million dollars, but-as all never following a financial plan-by the time it was all done, five million was the tally...

Rodney is busy in his next project- designing a Bronx church. He and his wife, Dr. Galia Austin-Leon, a pediatrician at SUNY Downstate and also has her clinic in Bedford-Stuyvesant have two daughters six year old Alexandria, and Saniyah who is three. The family lives in Park Slope Brooklyn-

I love every aspect of this project-the overall visual is somewhat surreal and knowing that a Haitian descent is responsible for the artistic concept makes the African Burial Ground Monument very much more special. And-I do hope that many of us with a iota of Haitian blood in our veins if and when in New York please do stop by. It will be worth your while.

As a matter of fact-Leon encourages it…

"This is or should become a pilgrimage site for all people of African descent, especially those who come from the enslaved populations who owe a debt of gratitude to these 17th- and 18th-century prisoners who were not only central to building New York City, but America as we know it today."

As exciting as visiting the monument can be-it is also very sad, very sad.

It is like walking through a massive personal
mausoleum putting in perspective where you came from, have been, is and heading...

To Rodney Leon---my unsung hero-BRAVO!




" Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some people abuse the privilege."

Boulegra,



Kafe