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This article examines the debates fostered by the public memorialization of slavery and the slave trade in the United States. After providing a typology of figurative representations of slavery in the public space, and the resistance they provoke, the article highlights how the memorial discourse on slavery seeks to promote interracial reconciliation. In so doing, the article examines the performative power of such a compensatory approach that is motivated by a will to foster commemorative equality but that ultimately refrains from any radical transformation of the commemorative landscape.