Proud to be an American

Art Business News, Nov, 2004

DES MOINES, IA -- "Victory! Victory!" a welded, stainless steel structure, standing 22-feet tall and 8-feet wide, now towers over the Fort Des Moines Memorial Park & Education Center--the site where the Army trained America's first black and female military officers. The monument was designed by sculptor Richard Hunt, a U.S. Army veteran himself, in honor of two graduating classes of soldiers who brought home a victory--African American soldiers in World War I and the Women's Army Auxiliary Corp. in World War II.

"Working on this project was particularly poignant for me as a veteran," says Hunt. "I knew this piece had to communicate strength, bravery, patriotism and the trail-blazing efforts of these uniformed men and women who were so instrumental in leading our society toward racial and gender equality."

Hunt served on the selection committee for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, he holds 13 honorary degrees from colleges around the country, and has taught at 30 universities, including Yale and Harvard.