Maryland to unveil State House monument honoring Black Revolutionary War soldiers

Mary Carole McCauley, Baltimore Sun on Oct 20, 2026

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A monument honoring Black Maryland patriots who served in the Revolutionary War will be unveiled Nov. 1 at the Maryland State House.

The unveiling ceremony for “The Pursuit of Transcendent Liberty” — a sculpture created by the California-based artist Branly Cadet — represents the culmination of a six-year passion project spearheaded by Maryland author and historian Steven Xavier Lee.

“Across Maryland there have been many monuments honoring white soldiers who fought for the United States,” Lee told The Sun. “But there has not been a single monument in Maryland honoring Black soldiers who fought for Maryland. That did not sit well with me.”

The capital project was undertaken by the Maryland State House Trust and has been jointly managed by the Department of General Services, the Maryland State Arts Council and the Maryland State Archives, according to an email from State Archivist Elaine Rice Bachmann.

In August 2025, the state Board of Public Works approved two allocations totaling $402,462 to fund the project: $311,500 to sculptor Cadet, and $90,962 to Campion Hruby Landscape Architects, which was hired to develop a site on the southeast lawn of the State House and near the original 18th-century entrance to the building.

Cadet was selected after project organizers put out a nationwide call for submissions in 2024. He has previously created other high-profile works, including memorials to baseball greats Jackie Robinson and Sandy Koufax that stand outside Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles.

The artist wrote in an email Tuesday that he is not free to discuss details of his design or work process until the Nov. 1 unveiling ceremony.

The new statue will join other memorials to seminal figures from Maryland history on the State House grounds. Monuments honoring statues of Mary “Molly” Ridout and George Washington, who were white, were unveiled in the Old Senate Chamber in 2014. Memorials to abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, who were Black, were presented in the Old House Chamber in 2020.

“I am very proud of the bipartisanship that this project represents,” Lee said, noting that the memorial was supported by the administrations of a Republican governor (Larry Hogan) and a Democrat governor (Wes Moore).

Lee was the founding director of the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum near Catonsville and is a former member of the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture. He also is the author of the 2022 children’s book, “The Story of Mr. Thomas Carney: A Maryland Patriot of the American Revolutionary War.”

“I think it’s super important that we are finally acknowledging that free black soldiers enlisted and fought for the birth of this nation,” Lee said. “The whole history of Black Americans is taught through enslavement, and that is just not accurate. I’ve been working for 30 years to bring this part of Maryland history to light.”

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