Baltimore Sun: The Story of Black Resilience and Joy

The Baltimore Sun / by Maya Lora / Published August 27, 2023

Baltimore native brings attention to the fight for desegregation with interactive exhibit on the site of the March on Washington

Teresa Durkin, executive vice president of the Trust for the National Mall, said the selected artists were asked to answer a simple prompt: “What stories remain untold on the National Mall?”

Adams, 53, responded with America’s Playground: DC, an interactive sculpture of a functioning playground split by a photographic image from the District of Columbia Public Library’s archives that captures the previously all-white Edgewood Park days after the city’s schools and playgrounds were desegregated in 1954.

“To have a playground on the National Mall, in the location where you’re in sightline of the Washington Monument and the World War II Memorial — it’s really in the very heart of everything — is astonishing,” Durkin said. “It’s a great example of how you can teach people about history and historic events, reach back into the past and then bring it all forward again.”