Edward O. Gourdin is alleged to have been a person of firsts, and on Tuesday, group members and his household locked their eyes on a statue in his honor for the primary time in Roxbury’s Nubian Square.
The life-size bronze monument, unveiled at General Edward O. Gourdin and African American Veterans Memorial Park, honors the person who served as commander and normal of one of many Army’s final racially segregated African American battalions throughout World War II.
Gourdin, who died in 1966, lived a life stuffed with accomplishments, past his service within the Army. A pair embrace being the primary man in historical past to file a 25-foot lengthy leap and the primary African-American appointed as a Superior Court choose in New England.
Haywood Fennell, president of Veterans and Friends of Gourdin Memorial Park, mentioned it’s necessary for the group to replicate on Gourdin’s legacy but additionally of all Black veterans.
Alongside the Gourdin statue are 10 bronze bas reduction portraits of Black veterans from the American Revolution to the Iraq War.
“This day means that we are starting to rebuild that profile that veterans need to be respected, to be honored for their service, and when they come home we have services in place for them,” Fennell instructed a crowd that gathered on the park Tuesday.
Gourdin’s granddaughter, Velicia Gourdin, labored with the veterans and mates committee in 2021, when she “truly grasped the enormity” of her grandfather’s achievements.
“If we want Edward Gourdin to be an inspiration to our young people, we need to tell them about not only his accomplishments but also about his humanity, about the child that came before the man,” she mentioned. “Let this space be a place of reverence, of thoughtfulness and respite, of acknowledgement and self-awareness, but also a place to dream.”
The park is a brainchild of Ralph F. Browne Jr., a veteran who sought a monument to acknowledge African American veterans throughout Boston and the Commonwealth.
City officers held a groundbreaking on the 18,000-square-foot triangular parcel, bordered by Washington Street, Malcolm X Boulevard, and Shawmut Avenue, in October 2021, however Browne’s imaginative and prescient got here to be in 1996, his spouse, Wilma Browne, recounted Tuesday.
The earlier park that took up house was devoted to Gourdin in 2010, however folks oftentimes minimize via it fairly than someplace they’d replicate on Black veterans’ service. The renovated park and memorial seems to vary that, Browne highlighted.
“This park creates an opportunity for our community and others to know of the sacrifice, courage and struggle of Massachusetts African American veterans throughout time and the significant role they continue to play in our community,” she mentioned.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”