We, the undersigned, affirm that the Black Lives Matter Uprising of 2020 has created a new work of revolutionary art on what has hitherto been known as the Lee Monument standing in what has hitherto been known as Lee Circle in Richmond, Virginia. We ask that parties to the current dispute over the future of this structure in this place agree: 

1. to rededicate the existing transformed monument and surroundings at the intersection of North Allen and Monument Avenues as a place of national remembrance and reconciliation and 
2. to maintain the monument as is, in place and in perpetuity, as the context for a new work of art that has been organically and authentically created by the people of the Black Lives Matter Uprising of 2020.

On May 30, 2020, protesters began the revolutionary transformation of a monument that had defied significant alteration for one hundred thirty years and one day. When the monument in the circle at North Allen and Monument Avenues in Richmond, Virginia, was unveiled on May 29, 1890, the United States was in its 114th year of independence. The changes that were wrought by protesters in their bid for freedom from brutality were the first real changes in the appearance and significance of a monument that had stood without appreciable change in form or meaning for more than half of our 244 years as an independent nation. 

With paint, placards and projected images, a diverse coalition of citizens, united under the banner of Black Lives Matter, memorialized African American men, women and children who have been unjustly killed by police. Using the once forbidding six story granite, marble and bronze structure as a canvas, the protesters wrote an epitaph for the "Lost Cause" myth in the course of writing a manifesto for reform in 21st Century America. 

The diverse crowds that now throng the monument base every day support conjecture that more African American people have stood within this circle in the days since the night of May 30, 2020, than are likely to have stood on that circle in the 130 years preceding that date. For the first time in its history, the monument is both accessible and welcoming to all, a community space with the atmosphere of a block party.  

To understand change as sweeping as the transformation currently afoot in the USA from within the historical moment at which it is occurring is as challenging as taking in a six story monument from a vantage point of only six feet, or even sixty feet, away. "Lost Cause and Effect", a short film made using archival photographs and video alongside recent photographs and video made during the Black Lives Matter Uprising in Richmond and Portsmouth, Virginia, considers the transformation of monuments by protesters from a speculative perspective a quarter of a century in the future. 

We believe that the moment on May 30, 2020, at which the monument began to serve as canvas and context for the Black Lives Matter Uprising is one that our children and our children's children will want to understand from the perspective of being there. We ask that the Circle be made even more accessible to visitors on foot, perhaps by eliminating the vehicular traffic that currently separates the Circle from Grace Park. We ask that projections that were initiated during the Black Lives Matter Uprising and updated projections as appropriate become a permanent feature of the Circle at night. We ask that open air performance spaces and additional canvases for spontaneous public art be included in future design plans for the Circle. We ask that ordinances be amended as needed to insure that the Circle remains a welcoming place for free assembly and free expression. 

For the first time in its 130 year history, this place is alive with all kinds of people representing all of America's promise. Let's keep it alive, and full of people, and full of promise.