North Carolina Freedom Park

North Carolina Freedom Park, opened in 2021 near the Capitol complex, honours the long history of freedom struggles in North Carolina — from the resistance of enslaved people through the civil rights movement and beyond. The memorial occupies a landscaped green space and centres on a series of granite walls inscribed with names, quotes, and an original poem by Maya Angelou commissioned for the site.

The design by Philip Freelon, the architect behind the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, creates a quiet, contemplative space in the middle of the Capitol district. It is free to visit and worth a stop alongside the Capitol itself.

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The park's centerpiece is a poem by the late Maya Angelou, commissioned specifically for the memorial and inscribed in granite. It honours North Carolinians who struggled for freedom across four centuries — from enslaved people who resisted bondage to civil rights workers of the twentieth century. Opened in 2021, it is one of the most recently completed memorials of its kind in any American state capital.

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