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significance note:
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Plaque commissioned by Memorial Hall Museum in 2005 to commemorate slavery in Deerfield. This memorial commemorates enslaved African Americans of Deerfield. Shamek Weddle designed the plaque working with, and as a member of, the African American Monument Committee. He explains: "I was inspired to go beyond regions of ownership and time, a call to and from the past to the future and the present. The 'call' is symbolized in the African drum, communicating to all African Diaspora spiritual presence: past, present and future. My drawing allows Deerfield to join with all other national and international historic sites of the African Diaspora. The cowry shells focuses on African-based religion and values; and how a lot of those beliefs and values have not been completely lost even with such strong culture-killers as the American slavery system--hence the broken chain."The ships that transported Africans across the Atlantic Ocean are represented at the base of the drum. The African American Memorial plaque was intentionally designed without words with the hope that as our knowledge and understanding of slavery deepens, so too will our interpretation of this tragic era in American history.
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