Authors and Architects Roanoke College Memorial | Q+A with Artist Sandy William IV
April 24th, 2025
Richmond-based artist Sandy Williams IV is the artist behind Authors and Architects, a memorial dedicated to recognizing and honoring the enslaved people whose labor and lives were integral to the founding and growth of Roanoke College and the surrounding area. Created in partnership with Creative Time and Roanoke College, the memorial consists of a bronze sculpture in the form of hundreds of stacked books, many engraved with the names of formerly enslaved Black people with ties to the school’s history. Cast from 3D scanned replicas from the college’s original library and record books, the sculpture creates a physical presence meant to acknowledge the freedom and education denied to these individuals while underscoring the foundational role they played in establishing the Roanoke community.
The memorial is part of a broader effort led by Roanoke’s Center for Studying Structures of Race (CSSR) to recover and reintroduce the stories of those who have been erased from the historical record. Williams, whose practice often explores the relationship between public memory, history, and space, brings that ethos to this commission—offering not only a sculpture, but also a platform for reflection, visibility, and gathering.
We asked Sandy to share more about the vision behind Authors and Architects.
1. Authors and Architects is such a powerful title—what does it mean to you, and how does it reframe the legacy of the individuals being honored?
The title Authors and Architects is meant to recognize the historical service of enslaved people as creators (authors) and founders (architects) within the history of Roanoke college and beyond. Their lives and identities are a universe outside the conditions of subjugation typically used to bind and minimize the legacies of Black and Brown people in the telling of American history. This title honors their memory, recognizes their agency, and underscores the significant roles that enslaved Black people played in the establishment and success of the United States.
I think so often we are given this caricature of the “ignorant” enslaved person that was just “along for the ride” during the creation of the US. However, when we go back to the record, we find that the skilled labor and ingenuity of enslaved people was essential to every facet of American life. To continue healing the (archival) scars and traumas of the United States we need to fill our collective narrative with these untold marginalized histories and reconsider the language that we have been using to remember these shared origins.
2. Your sculpture takes the form of 1,000 stacked bronze books, many engraved with names. Can you talk about the decision to use books as a symbol—and what it means to build a memorial from this form?
I chose bronze books because Authors & Architects sits on a college campus; an institution that epitomizes the value of an education. It is important to understand that while the people named on this memorial were integral to the construction and growth of the College, and the region, these are also people who were denied access to that same education and were never legally allowed to read or write.
The sculpture sits in front of Bittle Hall, which was the college library from 1872 until 1962. David Bittle was both an enslaver and the first president of Roanoke College, and many of the names that appear on the memorial are for people who were enslaved by Bittle. The bricks used to construct the early buildings on campus were made and constructed by enslaved people, which is why I also chose to reflect a layered brick pattern in the stacking of the bronze books.
These books also hold as a metaphor for the enslaved people’s missing stories, and while ornate and beautiful, the books on this memorial are closed to represent the memories of people that we may never have access to. There are blank books to represent the names that may have been missing in the archives, and other books marked “unnamed” represent spaces in the archive where human beings were not given names, but were remembered only as “boy,” or “woman,” or “individual.” Known family members were arranged to be side by side like volumes, and we also 3D scanned books from the college library’s archives to render different book cover textures onto the memorial.
Authors & Architects could not exist without the labor performed by the student researchers at Roanoke College, under the direction of Dr. Jesse Bucher (Associate Professor of History, Founding Director of the Center for Studying Structures of Race, College Historian, and Coordinator of the African and African Diaspora Studies Concentration at Roanoke College). In 2019, this team began working to find evidence of the enslaved and their stories within the margins of county records and archives (books) and so I think that the memorial’s bronze books hold as fitting symbols to remember this legacy of the project as well.
3. The names engraved on these books are drawn from years of research by students and historians. How does collaboration—with researchers, students, and the community—shape your process as an artist?
Making a public artwork is always a team effort, like a film, and within that dynamic I see myself as the director whose job includes listening to and relying on the creative input and expertise of the people around me. I think the most insincere form of community engagement on a public project is showing up with a finished idea, before spending time to get to know the community and what it actually needs. A big part of my process therefore is arriving with an open mind, asking questions, and listening to the hopes and concerns of any stakeholders willing to gift me their time. Authors & Architects may look simple, but it was built with many hearts and hands and is the physical accumulation of years of conversations and careful collaborative planning.
4. The memorial is both a sculpture and a space for gathering. What kind of conversations or feelings do you hope it sparks for those who engage with it?
On the day of the unveiling a student asked me, “What’s something I might be missing about this artwork? What am I not getting?,” and my answer was, “Whatever thoughts you haven’t had yet.” Any revelations about the work, about these histories, or about yourself that might now be brewing after seeing the artwork.
My hope is not for this artwork to be looked at as the end, or as an answer, but as an opportunity. I hope it opens new pathways for others to follow. I hope it is a place where people want to gather. I hope it makes more work like this more possible. I hope this is another beginning for someone. I hope it inspires a sense of pride and belonging for minds and faces who may otherwise feel disenfranchised by rhetoric that says this history is not important.
I would like for my work to inspire a sense of catharsis that is communal and opens viewers up to perspectives they may not have otherwise considered. I see my artworks as conversation pieces, like bridges, to feelings or histories that are absent, intangible, or might only exist invisibly within the space.
5. Much of your work engages with public space and memory. How does this project fit into your larger practice of using art to visualize histories that are often left out of view?
I truly believe that the only way we can know ourselves is by knowing our histories and where we’ve come from. I think sharing these left out origin stories is actually the only way for anyone to make sense of the world. We are living through very hard times, and I often ground myself in the stories of Black and Indigenous people who fought against the most extreme odds to love, survive and persist. I see myself as their ally and ancestor, continuing the work towards our shared dream of equality and freedom.
My art practice is ultimately concerned with cultivating love and empathy. I make art because I care. My mom is an amazing cook, and when I think about all the meals that she made for our family over the years, I most remember how loved they made me feel. In so many ways, I learned how to care for others through my parents and grandparents, but especially through my mother, and I want my art to hold people and their stories with that same love and care.
