City Council voted unanimously Tuesday evening to move forward with the Riverside Civil Rights Walk, a pedestrian trail linking 24 sites of local civil rights history through Downtown.
The project is funded entirely through a state grant with no cost to the city's general fund. Council awarded a construction contract to Universal Construction and Engineering, Inc. of Palm Desert for $2,711,717.16, with a 10% contingency bringing the total to $2,982,888.88.
The walk will include a core loop through the Downtown area and an expanded outer loop stretching to the Peace Tower on Mount Rubidoux, the original Press Enterprise building to the south, and Harada House to the north, with all 24 sites falling within that footprint. Each of the 24 stops will include three-sided informational pillars developed in collaboration with the Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California, the Museum of Riverside, and the Riverside Public Library. The monuments will use historical photographs and archival newspaper clippings, include content at children's height, and feature QR codes linking to a multilingual city website with additional information.
Beyond the educational monuments, the project includes pedestrian infrastructure improvements: reconstructed sidewalks, curb ramps, accessible pedestrian signals at 10 traffic signals, high-visibility crosswalks, and LED warning signage. It also includes decorative vinyl wraps for 10 downtown traffic signals and four decorative crosswalk intersections, designed by a local artist to be selected through a public request for proposals.
Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson traced the project's origins to her daughter.
"My daughter Clara was looking at our statues," Lock Dawson said during Tuesday's meeting. "She was working on her master's in museum studies and she wrote up a little paragraph proposal about this, gave it to Nathan, and Nathan's team is the one that got this $3 million grant for this."
She was referring to Nathan Mustafa, the city's interim Public Works director.
"This is an outdoor museum space and this is what the museum of the 21st century looks like," she said. "It's a totally different re-imagining of experiencing history."
Construction is expected to break ground in May 2026, with completion targeted for early fall. The Main Street Pedestrian Mall will remain open throughout construction, though some temporary pedestrian detours are possible. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for October, potentially tied to the United States' 250th anniversary celebrations.
Before the vote, Mustafa acknowledged that the existing César Chávez monument on Main Street — one of the 24 included stops — has been the subject of community debate, and said staff will work with the city's Arts and Cultural Affairs Division, Riverside Latino Network, and other community groups before monuments are installed at that site.
"Installation of these educational monuments will be one of the last parts of our project," he said. "There's ample time to allow for additional dialogue surrounding the site."
Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes, who moved to approve the contract, echoed that commitment.
"I personally would love to see how we could honor the farm worker movement," Cervantes said. "I know that there's more work to be had around that."
Ward 5 Councilmember Sean Mill said the walk would distinguish the city, comparing it to Boston's Freedom Trail, before turning to the Chavez monument.
"The people that made Riverside great," Mill said, referring to the farm workers the monument commemorates. "How much importance that monument signifies to the community."
The project's public outreach spanned more than two years and included stakeholder meetings, a walking tour during a national American Planning Association conference in Riverside, and a public meeting at the Main Library in May 2025.
