By Hannah Pittard
For Coastal Senior

John Carrington photo
Dr. Abigail Jordan was named Woman of the Year by the Gullah Festival in Beaufort for her work securing a monument on Savannah's River Street to honor the African experience.

Gullah Festival names her Woman of the Year.

There is a reason Dr. Abigail Jordan has been awarded the Gullah Festival's 2002 Woman of the Year Award. Though she is shy, she will confess to having played a large - if not the largest - part in the struggle to erect a monument on River Street in honor of the African experience.

It is her dedication to this struggle that first captured the attention of the Gullah Festival, an annual weekend-long event in Beaufort, S.C., celebrating the cultures and traditions of the Gullah people and the African slaves.

"We've been working on it for 11 years," says Jordan, whose background includes work at Tuskegee State, the U.S. Board of Education and Savannah State. "We struggled for 11 years. Savannah has 43 monuments and not one recognizes the experience of the black people."

That is, not until now. On July 27, the monument will finally be unveiled. According to Jordan, the struggle began in 1991 when she decided to invest in a pedestal for River Street that would act as a sort of remembrance of the trials of her, and so many other's, ancestors. Before the pedestal could ever be realized, however, Jordan encountered her first of many roadblocks.

"The criteria, I believe, and I cannot prove this, was set up to deter us," claims Jordan. "The criteria dictated a monument."

In addition to dictating a full-sized monument, the city required that Jordan's idea for a monument be heard and approved by a committee. This would mean both time and money.

While waiting for the formation of the committee, Jordan formed the African American Monument Association, which offered her the emotional and political support she needed. Through the AAMA, Jordan began to seek out the funds necessary for the monument.

According to Jordan, the AAMA tried to partner with several different organizations around the city, but each of them required too high a percentage of the funds they would eventually help her raise.

In the end, she turned to a familiar friend, the Consortium of Doctors, an organization of which she is the founder. She asked them to take the AAMA under their wing and they agreed. They have been helping raise funds for the project ever since.

Jordan's wait for the formation of the city's committee lasted five years. Even before city approval, however, she began work on the monument. The first step, finding a sculptor, would prove to be a struggle of sorts as well.

"Our sculptor is white," admits Jordan. "I tried desperately - and I got proof - to get a black. We couldn't bring somebody in here; we didn't have the money. We wanted somebody local so they could do other things and we could pay them on the side."

Though Jordan has received criticism for her choice of Dorothy Bradley, a white sculptor and teacher at SCAD, she remains confident in her decision. "We had a sculptor who believed in this thing so much - even before we were approved by the City Council - she continued to work and work and work," says Jordan.

Though the sculpture was completed last summer and is now in North Carolina where it has recently been bronzed, AAMA is still looking for the funds to cover the monument's immense costs. Ultimately, the organization is hoping to raise $500,000. To date, approximately $50,000 has been raised, $35,000 of which is from the state.

Though Jordan's struggle for funds is by no means over, her struggle for the realization of a monument finally is. The unveiling takes place on River Street on July 27 at 3 p.m. Everyone is welcome.