Ed Dwight was in line to fly to space before he ever heard the name Harriet Tubman.

He was 42 years old when a former Tuskegee Airman gave him two stacks of books and told him to look for her in U.S. monuments.

Dwight flew up and down the East Coast. Atlanta to New York and out west. Photographed over 4,000 statues.

War heroes. Founding fathers. Pioneers. Explorers.

He didn’t find one Black face.

He sold his companies and went back to school at 45. Learned to cast bronze.

Built a foundry. Thirty thousand square feet. Because the work was that vast.

Harriet Tubman.

Frederick Douglass.

Denmark Vesey.

Those who fled when Tulsa was burning.

Those who traveled north.

He made space where there'd been none.

Put them in public squares. On capitol grounds. In parks.

One hundred twenty-nine monuments.

Permanent.

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