Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial

In writing the Virginia Declaration of Rights, U.S. Founding Father George Mason IV took a stand for individual rights. His ardent defense would later inform the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution’s Bill of Rights—documents critical for securing liberties.

But a challenging irony rests in Mason’s words versus his actions.

The first time Katherine Ashby saw her artwork installed at Gunston Hall, the historic home of U.S. Founding Father George Mason IV, it was surreal. “I had never done something that felt that important or that had been installed physically,” the senior painting major from George Mason University said.

Students participating in INTO George Mason University’s summer program learned about the significance of Juneteenth and went on a guided tour Tuesday of the Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial and the Civil War redoubt located on the university’s Fairfax Campus.

Several hundred people gathered on Wilkins Plaza on April 4 for the dedication of the Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial, which grew out of a student research project launched in the summer of 2017.

The Enslaved people of George Mason Memorial will be dedicated at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, April 4, as part of the university’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

Mason is celebrating its first half-century as an independent institution and setting the tone for the next 50 years with a yearlong celebration that includes a week of festivities in April.

The Core Campus Project, which transformed the center of the Fairfax Campus, is wrapping up after five-plus years of planning and construction.

The Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial ecently opened as the centerpiece of the redesigned Wilkins Plaza on the Fairfax Campus, and is the focal point of how the university is addressing its identity as it relates to a complicated Patriot.

The reimagined Wilkins Plaza is open after two-plus years of construction. It includes a boulevard-like east-west walkway that extends from the Mason Pond Parking Deck to Southside.

Fifty-three weeks after it was moved to Holton Plaza to make way for construction related to the Core Campus Project, the iconic George Mason statue was returned to its home on George Mason University’s Wilkins Plaza.