Hands pointing upward will rim memorial fountain

Sculptor Stephen Hayes (left) preparing to cast the hands of a Burke High School student volunteer | photos by Herb Frazier
Malik Bennett, a student at the Military Magnet High School, holding a cast of his hands to be included in the memorial | Photos by Herb Frazier
North Carolina sculptor Stephen Hayes | Photos by Herb Frazier
Minister Deandre Muhammad (right) of Charleston getting his hand cast by sculptor Stephen Hayes | Photos by Herb Frazier
Casting of Minister Deandre Muhammad’s hands | Photos by Herb Frazier
Ervin McDaniel of Ladson casting his hands for the sculpture | Photos by Herb Frazier

Durham, N.C., sculptor Stephen Hayes will be working vigorously until Saturday to get as many plastic castings completed of the 36 pairs of hands that will rim the Anson African Burial Memorial fountain.

The memorial will be a tribute to 36 people interred in the 1700s in a burial plot at today’s Charleston Gaillard Center.

The Anson Street Memorial Committee selected 36 Charleston-area residents to serve as hand models for the fountain. Hayes is going through a time-consuming process to prepare hand castings of the models’ hands that will be used to produce the bronze castings for the fountain.

The memorial will sit near George and Anson streets where the remains of 36 Africans, Americans of African descent and a Native American were uncovered during the 2013 renovation of the Gaillard Center. In 2019, the Anson Street remains were reinterred at the site.

The fountain will rest in a bowl-shaped depression in the ground near the site where the remains were found. Water will spray from each set of hands.

The fountain is a dream of the late Dr. Ade Ofunniyin, founder of the Gullah Society. He galvanized attention on the Anson Street burial site and other unmarked graves in the city.

Ervin McDaniel, a former Gullah Society volunteer, was selected as one of the hand models. “Being a part of this is unimaginable,” he said. The memorial is important to honor the African ancestors, said McDaniel, who grew up in the Five Mile area but now lives in Ladson.

So far, more than $850,000 has been raised to create and maintain the fountain that will resemble a giant bird bath.