A colourful and deeply symbolic plaque showing peasants, surrounded by a rainforest, gaining intellectual, cultural and physical sustenance from a tree rooted in a human body, this plaque serves as a memorial to the El Salvadorian clergyman Óscar Romero, who was murdered in 1980. The plaque was unveiled in 1992 and is located at the junction of Dalkeith Road and Romero Place, the location of a University of Edinburgh residential block lying immediately to the south of Pollock Halls of Residence. The block took its name from the street, but was later renamed Fraser Court. The plaque was the work of local artist Paul Grime (b. 1956). It was commissioned by the Romero Place Memorial Group, led by Gilbert Marcus, the University's Catholic Chaplain, with the winning proposal selected by Professor Duncan Macmillan (b. 1939). The work was modelled in clay, and then cast in glass-reinforced concrete and coloured with acrylic paints.
Archbishop Óscar Romero of San Salvador spoke out against poverty, social injustice, human rights violations and violence in El Salvador, which grew into a civil war between a military-led right-wing government and left-wing guerrillas that went on to kill more than 75,000 people. Romero was assassinated in a hospital chapel after celebrating mass on 24th March, 1980. This crime was condemned internationally and he was canonised as a martyr by Pope Francis in 2018, the first Central American-born saint.
The memorial includes Romero's words:
Que mi sangre sea semilla de libertad y la señal de que la esperanza será pronto una realidad.Let my blood be a seed of freedom and a sign that hope will soon be a reality.
Oscar Romero, 16th March 1980.
