Through Groundswell’s Teen Empowerment Mural Apprenticeship (TEMA) program, youth created a series of public sculptural reliefs for Weeksville Houses in Brooklyn. Weeksville is a neighborhood founded by black freedman after the abolition of slavery in New York City. The Four Cornerstones represents the activist spirit of Weeksville residents past and present and consists of four permanently installed sculptural reliefs illustrating different aspects of civic involvement. The youth artists, a group of high school students from Weeksville, researched community history and learned elements of drawing and design. They were introduced to the technique of creating sculptural reliefs with Winterstone, a durable synthetic material that has a patina similar in appearance to metals. The reliefs feature portraits of several important community leaders, including Dr. Susan Smith McKinney Steward, the first Black woman doctor in New York; Maritcha Lyons, a prominent civil rights leader and educator; and Henry Highland Garnet, a leading abolitionist
