The symbol chosen as the representation of The Monument to The Freedom of Expression Foundation is Joseph Brown's Monument of Freedom of Expression. This sculpture was chosen because Joseph Brown felt that this was his greatest piece of sculpture.

The following was taken from Notes: A Monument to Freedom of Expression

by Joseph Brown

Late in 1950 a panel discussion was held on the Princeton Campus at one of the dining clubs. The panel was composed of Princeton University Faculty members and the question was: What should the Princeton University Faculty do about Senator Joseph McCarthy? I was one of the members of the panel.

Senator McCarthy had recently launched his campaign to rid our government and our culture generally of “subversives” and had started by picking on two obscure Brooklyn College teachers.

As the discussion progressed it became clear that the panel agreed that McCarthy was a man without integrity and that he was exploiting the touchy conflict between Communism and Capitalism to further his own ends; and that he didn't care if the attainment of his ends meant the sacrifice of innocent people. But I was appalled to realize that the majority opinion was, also, that he would run out of money and that Senator Robert Taft, who was then the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee would see to it that he got no more funds to continue his disgraceful campaign.

One of the panelists, a Professor of Classics, a personal friend, suggested that I relax, that the two fellows at Brooklyn College were not in his opinion subversives, but they were surely fools to have put themselves in such a vulnerable position “that a limited man like McCarthy could make so much trouble for them.”

I asked if he thought that people who got into trouble were fools and he replied, “Generally.” I asked him if Socrates was a fool, and demonstrating that even college professors can dig themselves deeper into a hole by doggedly trying to defend a mistake, he replied. “He might have done more for the world if he hadn't died when and how he did.” I said, “shame on you. His last oration has inspired innumerable heroes since, who would not give up their ideas just because they were outnumbered.” Starting with Jesus, I began to list some who had refused to hide, but stopped and shook my head. While I spoke, my colleague leaned on the table, the lower part of his face in his hand. “Joe” he said “Why do you have to be so emotional about this? Can't you be objective?” I explained simply that I was emotional because I was born with feelings and over the years “had learned to feel strongly about important things like freedom of expression”; I added the “I was not an object” and that that was why “I couldn't be objective.”

He said, “Oh come on Joe, don't be cute you now what I mean by being objective.” I replied, “Do you mean covering my mouth with three fingers to be sure that I don't say anything that might offend somebody and let my little finger slip under my chin so those kids will think I'm thinking? Is that objectivity?”

That night I did my first sketch for my monument. The front of the mask is black like gunmetal, and looks as if it were made in a machine shop. The inside of the mask is done with mixed forms. Although the general shape is concave, the details are a mixture of positive and negative forms, consequently, there are times when it looks like a negative mask and suddenly it appears to be positive. In both cases it looks troubled, scared.

The final monument will consist of three arms growing like trees out of a ring of cobblestones. The central arm holding the mask rises 26 feet into the air. The front of the mask is stark and mechanical, the back ambivalent, but always troubled. The arm to the right as you approach from the front rises 22 feet into the air. Its gesture is ambiguous; it could move to he front and remove the hand that covers the mouth. Or it could cover the eyes. The arm to the left is also ambiguous' it could be a gesture of benediction or the last gesture of a drowning person.

In the center of the cobbled space between the arms there will be a 7 foot gunmetal disc with incised gilded letters reading:

DEEP IS THE PIT WHEN WE ARE AFRAID TO BE FREE;

DARK IS THE CELL WHEN WE ARE AFRAID TO SPEAK OUR MINDS.

A monument is too often the symbol of something that once existed but is gone except in memory. Gravestones have their legitimate place but I want my design to be a Reminder rather than a monument, a reminder to us to keep something important alive. Nature has endowed us with qualities that are noble, but we have also been endowed with qualities that are less than noble. Each of us is undoubtedly unique, but just as undoubtedly we are more alike than we are different .

Without freedom of expression we will never reconcile the comparatively small differences between one nationality and another, one race and another, one sex and another, the young and the old, the rich and the poor, ad infinitum. It is only through free expression that we can get to know each other well enough to prevent the shameful in humanities that have occurred not only in ancient history, but which persists, and threaten to develop to an unbelievable brutal degree in the future. No one is so hopelessly imprisoned as the one who is willing to be his own jailer by suppressing his thoughts.