The Group Monumental Women Wants to Break the ‘Bronze Ceiling’

On August 26, the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the long-awaited Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument was unveiled in New York City’s Central Park. Featuring the bronze sculptures of Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, these are the first statues of real-life women to be displayed in the park’s 167-year history.

None of this would have been possible if it were not for the dedication of Monumental Women, a nonprofit organization with an all-volunteer staff that was formed in 2014 to “break the bronze ceiling” by advocating for the creation of such a statue.

“Americans are unaware of their history,” director Brenda Berkman told the FBomb. “These are people we can hold up to [each other’s] children.”

But Monumental Women has no plans to stop just because it has achieved this goal. The organization now aims to help other groups across the country honor historical women by both promoting and celebrating women’s history throughout the country, and also by helping to turn public spaces into places that represent and celebrate women who changed the world for the better. As their website explains, they want to challenge “municipalities across the country to rethink the past and reshape the future by including tributes in their public spaces to the diverse women who helped create and inspire those cities.”

This could be in the form of more statues or, Berkman explained, “there can be street names — whatever brings these women out of obscurity. We are not done.”

Berkman says that Monumental Women acknowledges the process they went through to advocate for a statue in Central Park may not necessarily be the same process other groups in other parts of the U.S. would have to go through to accomplish a similar goal. She also says anyone who seeks to undergo this process should be aware that it’s just that — a process. Nevertheless, they will assist other groups with similar endeavors to develop ways to publicly honor women.

Berkman also says that Monumental Women will not tell groups nationwide which women to pick.

“It has to rise organically from the community,” she says, adding that the group is nevertheless “happy to try and help any community” make that decision.

One organization Monumental Women has supported is the Ida B. Wells Memorial Foundation in Chicago. The Foundation funds projects honoring the legendary journalist, civil rights pioneer, and women’s rights activist, and the money donated by Monumental Women is helping to develop a project that is currently in its beginning stages.

Berkman’s ultimate hope is that honoring more historical women publicly will display how much these women fought for their civil rights, and how women of today cannot take those fights for granted — especially since the three women on the monument in Central Park did not live to see women achieve the right to vote.

“They had to fight like hell,” Berkman says of Truth, Stanton, and Anthony. “We need to take hope, to take strength from these women … these are really important figures.”