In the late 1870s, barely a few years into existence, the St. James Hotel in Red Wing employed as one of its bellhops one Joseph Parker, who grew up enslaved on a Kentucky plantation. More than 150 years later, Parker’s great-grandson, Seitu Ken Jones, has left his mark on the riverside Minnesota town – literally – as a tribute to another figure of local African-American history.

Jones, a St. Paul-based artist who seeks to create work that “links history to the present,” was a resident at Red Wing’s Anderson Center in May 2022, retracing not only his roots but those of other Black families in the area. This July, he translated his research into the design and installation of an etched-concrete display in front of the downtown Salvation Army Family Store.

Featuring engraved sidewalk squares and an informational plaque, the new work of public art is entitled “Stand in the Shadows,” and it highlights the life and legacy of Jeremiah Patterson.

Born into slavery in North Carolina, Patterson became a student of Julia B. Nelson, the famed Red Wing activist, when she began teaching newly freed slaves in Tennessee. Recently inducted to the Red Wing Women’s Hall of Fame, Nelson also fought for women’s rights and anti-alcoholism through a Christian nonprofit. But one of her most prominent hometown endeavors was actually spearheaded alongside Patterson, who moved to the area in the 1880s and became a close friend.

Together, in 1897, Patterson and Nelson opened The Equal Rights Meat Market, where the Salvation Army store stands today. Its doors opened just over 30 years after the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery, marking a partnership ahead of its time.

Seitu Ken Jones’ sidewalk etching honors Patterson’s journey: “I was born as chattel,” it reads, “but on this corner I was an owner and bought cattle for The Equal Rights Meat Market.” Next to the words is an engraved silhouette, while Patterson’s picture can be seen on the accompanying plaque.

“The Plum Street location of the Salvation Army Store (is) an ideal site for the shadow of Jeremiah Patterson,” Jones said in his initial project proposal. “This site receives more direct sunlight and (allows) people to stand in the shadow of someone who contributed to the history of Red Wing.”

Funded in part by the Blandin Foundation and the City of Red Wing’s Human Rights Commission, Jones’ artwork also benefited from advisors including Beth Breeden, the Goodhue County Historical Society and Frederick L. Johnson, a local historian who authored the book “Uncertain Lives: African Americans and their First 150 Years in the Red Wing, Minnesota Area.” Their collective research notes that Patterson’s impact did not end at the Meat Market, which stayed open for several years.

The freedman went on to have a fruitful interracial marriage with local Verna Gaylord, producing nine children, including a son, Chester, who became the first Black graduate of Red Wing High School; and two others who enlisted in World War I. Now buried, along with his longtime friend and teacher Nelson, at Red Wing’s Oakwood Cemetery, Patterson wasn’t alone in forging a career and family for himself in the area, even as other African Americans around the U.S. endured segregation and violence.

“In the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War, there were a lot of different Black people working at the St. James,” says Stephanie Rogers, executive director of the Anderson Center. “A large percentage of the service staff was African American. There was a Black-owned barbershop inside. It wasn’t just one or two people. It was a community.”

The Jeremiah Patterson display, Rogers explains, is a notable step toward “combating the erasure of Black stories in history.” Now come the next steps. Rogers hopes that Seitu Ken Jones’ work will inspire further research and conversation about Patterson’s story. But there are also plans to expand the public art into a full series of memorials, including a marker outside of the St. James.

In the meantime, Jones considers it a privilege to have used his own hands to share the history.

“Stories nourish us,” he recently told Public Art Saint Paul. “Stories feed us, both metaphorically and literally. Stories about food, stories about how our family got to the point where it is now, and all of those stories propel me and place this expectation on me to pass on these stories so that they’re not forgotten.”