John Grisham and George Garrett kick things off while the press looks on.
The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression unveiled their privately-funded, long-awaited free speech monument on the Downtown Mall this morning. The monument consists of a large Buckingham-minded slate chalkboard and a speaker’s podium, located in front of City Hall. Blog coverage is extensive, with The Hook, Outskirts, 2300 Days, Charlottesville Tomorrow, and Mayor David Brown all weighing in thus far. And Sean Tubbs has the audio at the Charlottesville Podcasting Network, natch. My mother’s got a Flickr set of the proceedings, as well as some of what was written.
From the photos, it looks like somewhere north of a hundred people attended, with John Grisham, David Brown, Boyd Tinsley, Dahlia Lithwick, and George Garrett speaking. At the beginning of the event, the chalkboard was blank; by the end, it was totally covered.
Disclaimer: I’m on the TJ Center Monument board, but it’s just a volunteer gig. But I missed the unveiling because I have the flu. Feh.
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