The University of Maryland will start construction Thursday on a memorial to honor Lt. Richard Collins III near the site of his 2017 murder on the campus, officials announced.
Collins, a 23-year-old Black student at Bowie State University, was a newly commissioned second lieutenant in the U.S. Army when he was fatally stabbed at a College Park bus stop in May 2017. His killer, a White student formerly enrolled at U-Md., was convicted of first-degree murder two years later.
Students and other members of both universities for years have called on U-Md. to honor Collins’s life with a physical memorial. Darryll J. Pines, the university’s president, outlined plans to build one on campus during a social justice symposium in April 2021.
Officials, including Pines, Bowie State President Aminta H. Breaux and the Collins family, held a private ceremony on Wednesday to break ground on the project. The memorial — which will be spread across a plaza and feature a fountain, laser-engraved granite plaque and mural — will be located near Montgomery and Annapolis halls on the southern part of campus and not far from the bus stop where Collins was killed.
The Collins memorial is designed to be a place of reflection and bring positive energy to a part of campus marked by tragedy, Pines said. The memorial will have two entryways, meant to welcome the community inside.
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“It is to invite the community in to, first, learn about Lieutenant Richard Collins III, but also to reflect about how each individual can contribute in a positive way to social justice issues locally, nationally, in the state of Maryland or just in their community,” Pines said in an interview.
The plaza is expected to be finished in May, in time for the fifth anniversary of Collins’s death.
Collins was visiting friends on U-Md.'s campus when he was attacked the morning of May 20, 2017.
Sean Urbanski was convicted of first-degree murder in 2019 in Collins’s death. A judge dismissed a hate-crime charge against Urbanski, ruling that prosecutors had not proved Collins’s race was the sole reason he was murdered — despite racist content Urbanski had on his phone and his membership in the Facebook group “Alt-Reich: Nation.”
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Urbanski was sentenced to life in prison in early 2021.
Days after Collins’s death, a black graduation gown was draped over an empty chair at what would have been his graduation ceremony. He was posthumously promoted to first lieutenant.
Collins’s mother, Dawn Collins, said she hopes her son’s memorial will be a symbolic place that “repudiates all forms of hate and bigotry.”
“We wanted a place that reflects the best of us,” Dawn Collins said at the Wednesday groundbreaking. “When you visit the plaza, meditate on your hopes and your dreams. Draw on the spirit of my son, his patriotism, his dedication to his career in the military and his passion for pursuing his dreams.”
Breaux also shared remarks.
“My hope is that each person who sees this plaza will think about the legacy left to us by Lieutenant Collins and will be reminded of the charge we have as members of the greater community to take personal responsibility against the issues negatively impacting our society and demand change,” she said in a statement.
In 2020, U-Md. and Bowie State unveiled a partnership to promote social justice, honor Collins’s life and further research about racism and injustice. The BSU-UMD Social Justice Alliance also hosts symposiums and has an event planned in April.
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