Lincoln’s Return: A Public Conversation

In this article

You are invited to join the City of Portland and other community members for this free, in-person event at the Portland Art Museum on Tuesday, September 8 at 6 p.m.

About the event

This conversation will bring together artists, historians, cultural leaders, and community members for a thoughtful discussion about how cities care for, interpret, and reconsider monuments over time.

The evening's themes will include:

• The history of Portland's Abraham Lincoln monument
• The conservation and restoration process
• The City's decision-making and public monuments policy
• The role of interpretation, context, and public engagement
• How communities across the country are reconsidering monuments and public memory

The program will include a presentation on the City's work to restore the Lincoln statue, a panel conversation moderated by Adam Davis of Oregon Humanities, and an opportunity for audience questions. Learn more about the panelists below and RSVP to let us know you'll be there.

RSVP to attend

After you RSVP, we'd like to hear a little about what you're bringing into the room, what interests you, what you're curious about, and what questions or perspectives you hope are part of the conversation.

Your responses to these six questions will help inform the moderator and panel discussion. The form also provides an opportunity to let us know about any accessibility accommodations that would support your full participation in the event.

Event moderator and panelists

Moderator

Adam Davis has been the executive director of Oregon Humanities since 2013 and directed the Center for Civic Reflection in Chicago before that. In these jobs, Davis has trained thousands of discussion leaders across the country, facilitated hundreds of community and workplace discussions, moderated onstage conversations with community-builders, office-holders, and authors, and worked on organizational planning, support, and growth. He hosts Oregon Humanities' podcast and radio show, The Detour, and has edited books including Taking Action, The Civically Engaged Reader, and Hearing the Call across Traditions. Davis sits on the boards of the High Desert Partnership, the Federation of State Humanities Councils, the Cultural Advocacy Coalition of Oregon, and the Bull Run Leadership Center. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago and used to lead wilderness trail crews in the Pacific Northwest.

Panelists

Eliza E. Canty-Jones

Eliza E. Canty-Jones collaborates with people from across cultures, generations, and knowledge backgrounds to create publications and programs that elevate marginalized voices and advance complex perspectives. She began to value history while interviewing a local waterman and St. George Islander when she was an undergraduate student, studying English literature at St. Mary's College of Maryland, where she became founding co-editor of SlackWater: Oral Folk History of Southern Maryland; she holds an M.A. in History from Portland State University. She is editor of the Oregon Historical Quarterly and chief program officer at the Oregon Historical Society. Canty-Jones was co-founder and served as president of the Oregon Women's History Consortium, which created the project "Century of Action: Oregon Women Vote, 1912-2012."

Eric Fredericksen

Eric Fredericksen is the public art administrator of the City of Portland Office of Arts & Culture, where he oversees the management of the City's 1,700-piece collection and guides the Percent for Art program. From 2017 to 2025 he led the public art program at the City of Vancouver, BC, where he worked to increase the visibility and voice of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations on their unceded territories. He was previously the Waterfront Art Program Manager for the City of Seattle, commissioning significant public artworks by Ann Hamilton, Qwalsius - Shaun Peterson, Norie Sato, Buster Simpson, Oscar Tuazon, and Stephen Vitiello. As the founding director of Western Bridge, Seattle, he organized exhibitions and commissions from 2004 to 2012, and he began his career as a writer and editor at Architecture magazine and The Stranger.

David Harrelson

David Harrelson is an administrator, lecturer, and proponent for the arts and historic preservation. He works as the Cultural Resources Department manager for The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, where he is also an enrolled member. He currently serves on the Oregon Arts Commission and previously served on the Oregon State Advisory Committee for Historic Preservation (SACHP). David has championed the use of his people's ancestral art forms for the purpose of public art. He has worked in the field of cultural resources for 16 years. Some of his research and professional interests include ethnobotany, indigenous foods, contact-era Pacific Northwest history, and Western Oregon indigenous art. When not working for his Tribe, he is making and selling wines as the owner/ winemaker for amaa wines.

TK Smith

TK Smith is an award-winning writer, curator, and cultural historian. He has over ten years of experience as an independent curator. Most recently, he served as Curator, Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora, Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. Previously, Smith served as Assistant Curator: Art of the African Diaspora at the Barnes Foundation. Smith's writing has been published in exhibition catalogues, academic journals, and periodicals, including Art Papers where he is a contributing editor. He has been a visiting lecturer at numerous academic and cultural institutions, including Cornell University. Smith is a doctoral candidate in the History of American Civilization program at the University of Delaware, where he is completing his dissertation entitled, "Granite, Power, and Piss: The Transformation of a Confederate Symbol."

Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr.

Master Artist Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr. is a Transdisciplinary, Black, Italian, Queer, Non-Binary, Neurodivergent creative practicing primarily in america. Their collaborative approach to community engagement results in artwork by and for the people.

Stevenson's practice has been dedicated to supporting young people ages 4 to 18 in developing the necessary skills to encourage advanced imaginative thinking and self-confident expression. In 2019 they developed the Afro Contemporary Art Class at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School which has had many forms since, including Afro Futurist February (2020), three years of Fred Hampton Summer Camp (2020-2023), and the Living Archive at Jefferson High School (2023-2025). Currently they are collaborating to start up a new youth centered programming in Portland to support the concerning statistics on youth education in the city.

Stevenson bridges the ideas, understandings, and contexts surrounding youth development into the contemporary art and socio-political worlds. Some of which were embedded in Mapping the Pipeline shown at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art as part of the Policing Justice exhibition (2025). Recent creative projects include participating as an artist in residency program with GLEAN Portland (2026) and as guest curator of Congruencies Trans:form(ed) at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts (2026).

Stevenson continues to cultivate a robust portfolio of artist projects centering food and gathering around it, projects involving sculpture, drawing, and photography, and work in collaboration with currently and formerly incarcerated folks.

Stevenson pursues these professional and creative goals passionately because they believe that empowered and open-minded young people and communities are the best and most direct way toward ensuring a sustainable and prosperous future for all.

Presented by the City of Portland

This event is presented by the City of Portland Office of Arts & Culture as part of the Portland Monuments Project. The Portland Monuments Project supports public conversations, artistic projects, historical research, conservation, and community engagement examining monuments and public memory throughout Portland.