PRX Announces “Monumental,” A Podcast Documentary Series Exploring How Monuments Reflect the Story and Realities of America
“Monumental” is hosted by Ashley C. Ford and features stories from audio journalists nationwide. The podcast launching October 30 is supported by the Mellon Foundation
Public media organization PRX — one of the world’s top podcast publishers and public radio distributors — today announced Monumental, a podcast documentary series exploring the changing nature of monuments in America today. The series asks: What stories are monuments telling, and what do they say about who or what is deemed important, powerful, and consequential? Which stories have been left out? What still needs to be expressed?
Episodes of the new 10-part series will be released weekly on Mondays over two seasons beginning October 30 through November 20 before returning in winter 2024. Monumental is available free on-demand across all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Pocket Casts, and Overcast. An audio trailer is available now:
The first two episodes will feature Emmy Award-winning journalist Wonbo Woo, who will help shed light on definitions of monuments, their role in our culture, and movements to remove those which are inaccurate or oppressive. Journalism professor Gisele Regatão will also examine the glorification of Christopher Columbus in American history, including the Birth of a New World monument in Puerto Rico which is taller than the Statue of Liberty. Throughout the series, more than a dozen audio journalists countrywide will piece together complex narratives behind statues, burial grounds, and beyond, at times presenting a troubling history — such as a commemoration of a racist massacre and the only successful coup d’etat in U.S. history — and at times hopeful, such as an upcoming installation depicting immigrant workers in Boston, where the nation’s founders cast a shadow.
Acclaimed writer Ashley C. Ford serves as host. Ford is the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir Somebody’s Daughter from Flatiron Books, the former co-host of the HBO podcast Lovecraft Country Radio, and the host of Into the Mix: A Ben & Jerry’s Podcast About Joy and Justice. She has written or guest-edited for publications including The Guardian, ELLE, and Teen Vogue.
Monumental is produced by PRX Productions, PRX’s award-winning creative studio specializing in audio storytelling. The podcast’s production team includes creators who have helped make acclaimed series from Studio 360, The World, Slate, WNYC, American Public Media, and more, including PRX Productions Executive Producer Jocelyn Gonzales, Rosalind Tordesillas, Nancy Rosenbaum, Lauren Francis, Tommy Bazarian, Jamie York, and Edwin Ochoa. Original music is composed by Jelani Bauman and Alexis Cuadrado. The series is generously supported by the Mellon Foundation.
“We’re proud to launch Monumental, intended to uphold our mission of bringing meaningful audio storytelling to listeners everywhere,” said Jason Saldanha, Chief of Business Development and Content at PRX. “We hope this ambitious podcast and project is compelling, provocative, and that it inspires more conversations about our collective history and memorialization. It wouldn’t be possible without each of the audio journalists, producers, and Ashley C. Ford all helping to bring stories across the U.S. to life. We thank every Monumental team member for their determined work and the Mellon Foundation for their support.”
Confronting the reality of a number of U.S. monuments to date, Monumental also aims to help advance the conversation about how monuments may acknowledge the multiplicity of America’s past, present, and future.
“Our vision for the Monuments Project is one of rigorous inquiry into our collective history, steadfast community engagement, and the undaunted effort to represent the vast multiplicity of American experiences in the country’s commemorative landscape,” said Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander. “This series creates a necessary and expansive forum for exploring the stories inherent to this work, and we at Mellon are pleased PRX is sharing them with the broader public.”
Additional episodes will feature stories by the following audio producers on the following topics:
- Emily Nadal, radio producer and former park ranger for the National Park Service, will unearth the interconnected stories of two sites only blocks from each other in New York: Federal Hall on Wall Street — a site dedicated to the first amendment, the first capital, the first president — and the African Burial Ground, dedicated to 419 enslaved Africans buried there. The sites reveal a contrast in the telling of the birth of the United States.
- Podcast producers Ben Montoya and Warren Langford will bring listeners the story behind the Soldier’s Monument in Santa Fe, New Mexico, an obelisk erected after the Civil War to honor soldiers who perished fighting the Confederacy. But it was also dedicated to Union soldiers who forcibly relocated and incarcerated thousands of Indigenous peoples. In 2020, the monument was partially toppled by protestors but its painful legacy continues to fuel tension in the city. Now Santa Fe is grappling with a tough decision: to rebuild the controversial monument or not.
- Peabody Award-nominated producer John Biewen and Michael Betts will visit an 1898 monument commemorating a racist massacre in Wilmington, North Carolina — the only successful coup d’etat in U.S. history. This episode will also honor the experience of Wilmington’s Black community and of those who fought for a multiracial democracy in the U.S., explore the legacy and meaning of 1898, and illuminate the monument in the heart of Wilmington acknowledging what happened. Biewen is the creator of the Scene on Radio podcast distributed by PRX and is Director of Storytelling and Public Engagement at Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics. Betts serves as Assistant Professor of Film Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
- Heidi Shin, acclaimed radio producer and co-creator of the New American Songbook podcast will report from Boston, which will soon see the installation of The Chinatown Workers Statues. The new monument will also represent the invisible work of women who care for children. Artist Wen-Ti Tsen who designed the statues notes: “Instead of just seeing European generals on horseback, we want to see other depictions that really show our contribution to American life.”
- Author and reporter Irina Zhorov will explore ways in which trailblazers of women’s suffrage are celebrated in the state of Wyoming. A statue of Esther Hobart Morris, Wyoming’s first Justice of the Peace, had stood in front of the Wyoming capitol since 1963. When the state capitol underwent extensive renovations starting in 2016, the statue was removed and sent for repairs before being placed in the capitol basement. It remains there. Zhorov is author of Lost Believers (Simon & Schuster) with audio reporting heard on NPR’s Planet Money, The World from GBH and PRX, and more.
- Documentarians J. Matt and Caroline Losneck will consider one of the few monuments memorializing a foreign attack on U.S. soil alongside a historic site recognizing World War II imprisonment. As Hawai’i hosts both the Pearl Harbor National Memorial and the yet-opened Honouliuli National Historic Site — recognizing the imprisonment of members of the U.S. Japanese population — J. Matt and Losneck will consider interpretations of wartime tragedies. J. Matt is a multi-media documentarian based in Honolulu whose work has appeared in Lapham’s Quarterly and at Vox. Losneck is a documentarian whose work has been heard on Maine Public Radio and Marketplace.
- Podcast producer Jess Jupiter will visit Stone Mountain — the most popular park in Georgia — where there’s also the largest high relief sculpture in the world, depicting three Confederate figures. The land is also steeped in Ku Klux Klan history. 16 miles away is a statue of civil rights leader Xernona Clayton. How can an 8-foot statue of a civil rights hero face down a mountain?
- Tamar Avishai, Cleveland-based art historian and creator of The Lonely Palette art podcast, will take an in-depth look into the art of monuments, guided by questions such as: What’s different about creating monuments than other kinds of public art? How do the artist’s process and the civic process intersect? Can we look beyond the traditional forms that monuments have taken and find other ways to better represent new stories?
About PRX
Celebrating its 20th year as a nonprofit public media company, PRX works in partnership with leading independent creators, organizations, and stations to bring meaningful audio storytelling into millions of listeners’ lives. PRX is one of the world’s top podcast publishers, public radio distributors, and audio producers, serving as an engine of innovation for public media and podcasting to help shape a vibrant future for creative and journalistic audio. Shows across PRX’s portfolio of broadcast productions, podcast partners, and its Radiotopia podcast network have received recognition from the Peabody Awards, the Tribeca Festival, the International Documentary Association, and more, including in 2022 when Futuro Media and PRX won a Pulitzer Prize. Visit PRX.org for more.
