classical architecture, African and Indigenous architecture and culture were depicted as primitive, unevolved, and uncivilized as compared to Euro-American culture. The exhibits openly reinforced stereotypes and perpetuated Eurocentric narratives of racial and cultural superiority. These assertions became foundational in the promotion of neoclassical and Beaux Arts design across America, particularly in the design of civic buildings and monuments during the 19th and 20th centuries. In 2010, Dancers’ Group presented my work “Sailing Away” as part of its inaugural Rotunda Dance Series at City Hall. This performance featured the lives of notable Black San Franciscans from the 1850s who lived and worked downtown. It was an honor to invoke the spirits of such figures as Mifflin Gibbs, Mary Ellen Pleasant, and Grafton Tyler Brown in this building. Yet, seeing them roam amongst the Roman and Greek figures and juxtaposed to modern statues predominantly depicting white men, evoked a feeling of disconnectedness, a lack of belonging. There was nothing in this public building, the People’s Palace, that honors the land where we all reside or speaks to the histories, culture, or aspirations of people of color and other historically marginalized communities here.
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