On South Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, a great Chicago monument is to rise in memory of President Obama, the Obama family, and the many accomplishments during his time in office.  Perhaps more pressing, however, it will rise as an enduring symbol of racial equality, positive change, and the power of personal achievement.  On the South Side of Chicago, where many ills dominate the narrative – some legitimate and some sensationalized – such a monument is needed with certain urgency.

A new American monument, in the spirit of the Statue of Liberty and the Gateway Arch, is to gracefully rise in a verdant new setting aside the historic Washington Park – Olmsted’s creation, but embraced as a physical and spiritual touchstone for generations of Chicago’s African Americans.  This will be a Beacon of Hope.

Borrowing the words of a Chicago minister, President Obama spoke often of the Audacity of Hope.  Hope, indeed, resonated throughout his campaigns and presidency.  While the Beacon of Hope strives principally to achieve composed immutability, an enduring simplicity of form and overt elegance of functional expression, it also endeavors to embody some of the very audacity that has sculpted the arc of President Obama’s life.