The Florida Legislative Black Caucus will formally dedicate the “Circle of Chains” memorial sculpture on Feb. 3 and mark the site of Steven Whyte’s bronze sculpture of six enslaved people at the Florida Capitol as a place of reflection and healing.
In 2018, the Florida Legislature approved spending $400,000 to create and install the country’s first memorial to slaves on a state Capitol’s grounds. The life-sized sculpture of men, women and a child held in chains was unveiled in April with little fanfare or broad public notice.
It sits next to the historic Union Bank building in Memorial Park, which extends the Capitol campus across Monroe Street. The bank was a leading financial institution of the region’s antebellum slave-based economy and would become the Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Company after the Civil War.
Its installation and dedication ceremony comes within a broader political context of a highly polarized debate about how Florida teaches Black history and curtailment of diversity initiatives.
NAACP once declared Florida ‘hostile to Black Americans’
In 2023, the NAACP issued a travel advisory for Florida, arguing that the state has become “hostile to Black Americans.”
The organization also cited Gov. Ron DeSantis’ landmark education bill, the Stop W.O.K.E. Act, which restricts how race relations are taught, as an attempt to erase Black history.
In Circle of Chains memorial at the Florida state capitol, one slave breaks the chain that cuffs his wrist but holds on to the one that connects him to the others
Although the Department of Management Services, the state’s property manager, has not held an official unveiling, Rep. Felecia Simone Robinson, D-Miami, said the department has been working with the caucus to make sure the sculpture and site is at its “best looking” for the dedication.
When asked if the state plans an official dedication ceremony, DMS did not respond. “But I am the state,” Robinson said, when asked about a lack of state recognition.
Robinson is the Black Caucus’ co-chair and is organizing the event. She said she and other caucus members are state representatives and senators, some of the very lawmakers that passed the legislation to create the sculpture, who now want to celebrate it.
Rep. Felicia Simone Robinson, D-Miami-Dade is the Legislative Black Caucus co-chair.
“It is not to make anyone feel badly towards their predecessors. It is to memorialize, to recognize and honor the men, women, and children that suffered the indignity and cruelties that slavery inflicted upon a race of people,” said Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg. He sponsored the bill that authorized the sculpture.
Artwork ‘breathes history and reaches forward all at once’
When he was commissioned as the sculptor, Whyte said the challenge was to create public art that “breathes history and reaches forward all at once.” And with “Circle of Chains,” Robinson said Whyte accomplished the mission.
The sculpture illustrates the weight of history in six individuals connected by a chain. A man with a whip-scarred back holds a broken chain in one hand, and in his other hand is a chain attached to a small child.
Sen. Darryl Rouson poses for photo during opening day of the Florida legislative session Tuesday, March 4, 2025.
The child’s chain trails behind them to a young woman in tattered clothes, seemingly on display for sale. She stares at the Union Bank, which possibly would have financed the transaction. Her chain connects to a man writhing on the ground with an anguished look on his face.
“We don’t want to live in the past, but we don’t want to forget it either because what happened in the past actually laid a foundation to how strong of a people we are now,” Robinson said. “You have to be there and see it and get the full effect – it’s amazing. I just invite everyone to come and share our joy.”
If you go
The dedication ceremony will begin at 4 p.m. in the parking lot that the Circle of Chains shares with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Sen. Tracie Davis, D-Jacksonville, will deliver a keynote speech. Other lawmakers will present a historic monologue and a reading of a series of statements made by Black historical figures.
James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida Capital Bureau. Reach him at jcall@tallahassee.com and follow him on Twitter/X: @CallTallahassee.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Black Caucus to dedicate Florida slavery memorial at Capitol