Rep. Norton Calls For The Removal of Emancipation Memorial At Lincoln Park, Protest ScheduledTonight
Last edited Fri Jul 10, 2020, 05:48 AM - Edit history (3)
Source: WUSA9
(5 hrs ago). Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton wants the Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park removed, and she will look to introduce legislation in the House of Representatives if the National Park Service cannot remove it. "Because Lincoln Park is National Park Service (NPS) land, I will work with the NPS to see whether NPS has the authority to remove the statue without an act of Congress, and if so, we will seek its removal without a bill," said Norton in a statement from her office. "This statue has been controversial from the start. It is time it was placed in a museum."
The bronze memorial statue was erected in 1876 to honor Abraham Lincoln for the Emancipation Proclamation and was put up 11 years to the day that he was assassinated at the Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth. But criticism does surround the memorial statue because of what it depicts, and that formerly enslaved Americans did not have any say in how it was built.
"Although formerly enslaved Americans paid for this statue to be built in 1876, the design and sculpting process was done without their input, and it shows. The statue fails to note in any way how enslaved African Americans pushed for their own emancipation," said Norton. "Understandably, they were only recently liberated from slavery and were grateful for any recognition of their freedom. However, in his keynote address at the unveiling of this statue, Frederick Douglass also expressed his displeasure with the statue."
A protest was scheduled for 7pm Tuesday at Lincoln Park, organized by "The Freedom Neighborhood." The group said they want the Emancipation Statue "gone" and have openly said they are not working with police...
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/rep-norton-calls-for-the-removal-of-emancipation-memorial-at-lincoln-park-protest-scheduled-tonight/ar-BB15SUYq
Holmes Norton said to WUSA9 that Andrew Jackson's statue also needs to come down and she is considering ways to move on this within her own office.
On Juneteenth, a statue of Confederate general Albert Pike was dismantled by activists outside D.C. Police headquarters. It is the only outdoor statue in D.C. of a member of the CSA, but more than a dozen are located indoors.
The Emancipation Memorial initially faced the Capitol, but when a tribute sculpture to Mary McLeod Bethune, the African American educator was placed in the park, the Emancipation Memorial was turned 180 degrees so the statues would face each other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v7z4sjWayFr0
- Protest over Emancipation Statue, Lincoln Park, Wash., D.C. *Streamed live 2 hours ago, WUSA9.
D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes-Norton said she wants it removed and put in a museum. https://bit.ly/2VabSmq
groundloop
(11,488 posts)that need to go first. I get that some people don't like this particular statue, but it's in honor of President Lincoln ending slavery which, IMO, doesn't even come close to statues of confederate leaders.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)and that was a long time ago.
groundloop
(11,488 posts)I guess I didn't do due diligence before forming an opinion. After seeing the photo I can say that I despise that statue and that it should either be reworked (maybe by an artist or artists who are descended from slaves) or else removed.
burrowowl
(17,606 posts)we need a much better statue for celebrating Proclaimation.
FBaggins
(26,697 posts)Douglas' oration at the statue's dedication was exceptional. It fully recognized Lincoln's failings but honored him fully despite them. I don't remember seeing anything but praise for the statue (as well as explicit commentary that statues for Lincoln should be raised and should stand forever).
His ending:
Fellow-citizens, I end, as I began, with congratulations. We have done a good work for our race to-day. In doing honor to the memory of our friend and liberator, we have been doing highest honors to ourselves and those who come after us; we have been fastening ourselves to a name and fame imperishable and immortal; we have also been defending ourselves from a blighting scandal. When now it shall be said that the colored man is soulless, that he has no appreciation of benefits or benefactors; when the foul reproach of ingratitude is hurled at us, and it is attempted to scourge us beyond the range of human brotherhood, we may calmly point to the monument we have this day erected to the memory of Abraham Lincoln.
Doesn't sound like he didn't like it.
I don't know why no one is reporting on the United Daughters of the Confederacy. They are responsible for many confederate statues and white washing of history books. They are connected to the KKK via history.
SpazzTheCat
(69 posts)It is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to get the general public to consider a statue celebrating Lincoln's emancipation of the slaves, a negative thing that deserves to be taken down.
These types of overreaches allow us to be painted as radical. It pushes the moderate swing voters away from the Democratic party.
I said it in an earlier thread...optics matter.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)I don't know why we don't treat him like one.
regnaD kciN
(26,035 posts)I don't think they should just tear it out and leave it vacant, but how about commissioning a new replacement statue for the park -- one that doesn't commemorate the event with an image of a slave kneeling at Lincoln's feet?
Response to SpazzTheCat (Reply #3)
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Polybius
(15,239 posts)I'd like to win in November.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)Trump's poll numbers have dropped & so has approval rating since the protests.
Trump called for 10 year prison sentences & "serious force" for statue removals. What do you think about that?
You all picked Biden because he would "beat Trump like a drum" what are you guys so worried about? You guys should be happy.
I see so far everyone in this thread is opposed to taking the statue down except for you. When everyone is on the opposite side, it might be time to rethink your position.
I don't want to state how long I think people should go to prison for illegally taking down statues, I am not looking for an argument. As for picking Biden, I didn't pick him in the primaries. I obviously support him now though.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)I respect her opinion more than anyone at DU. I tend to respect people who know what they are talking about more than message board posters.
I never cared if something I supported was popular or not.
A lot of the same arguments I see made against statues here at DU I also see from right wingers on social media.
Polybius
(15,239 posts)But somethings I disagree with. I'm not very radical at all.
IronLionZion
(45,261 posts)When I first saw this 11 years ago, I had a white girlfriend and we both agreed that it was a terrible depiction of the white savior mentality with a subservient black person at his feet. It's fine to have a statue honoring Lincoln and emancipation, but it can be done much better than this.
burrowowl
(17,606 posts)Withywindle
(9,988 posts)This statue is offensive. It's time for a new design that honors Emancipation without depicting a Black person as servile - which makes it not really about TRUE Emancipation.
marybourg
(12,540 posts)when I first saw it 59 years ago. And Im white.
pm_me_grey_paint
(17 posts)RADM David Porter is known to have wrote his books and reports like a modern US Navy petty officer embellishing their evals, but if Porter's report of his visit with Lincoln to Richmond wasn't exaggerated, the President would not have approved of that statue of a former slave kneeling before him. Lincoln would have considered it highly sacrilegious.
....Their leader, an old man, sprang forward exclaiming: "Bless the Lord, here is the great Messiah!" and he fell on his knees before the President, his comrades following his example. The President was much embarrassed. "Don't kneel to me," he said, "kneel to God only, and thank Him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy..." - The Naval History of the Civil War, David Dixon Porter
The Emancipation is something that should be honored unlike those who took up arms against the United States over slavery, and that statue needs to be reworked to be more appropriate.
Politicub
(12,163 posts)It is indeed demeaning to black people. The statues shows an African American, presumably a slave, on his knees in front of Lincoln. I suppose it's meant to represent Lincoln breaking the slave free from bondage.
Instead it portrays subservience. This is an instance where the statue should be removed and replaced with one that isn't so demeaning.
Happy Hoosier
(7,081 posts)It should be replaced by a memorial with more modern sensibilities, IMO.
Igel
(35,197 posts)Let's include all those old buildings, old pictures. The pyramids are outdated, let's update them. And the old slave quarters on display at some plantations are a disgrace. Tear them down and show how they should have lived.
Or we can learn what the past was like and accept the past as the past.
What we can't do is rewrite it. There's the maxim that if you control the past you control the future. That's a saying for totalitarians. And fools. And those who simply can't be bothered with being accurate they're so busy trying to get their will imposed.
Here's an example:
I've seen this said before. It's a truism. Like many, it's become uncoupled from anything true. I've read Douglass' speech through a few times now. I don't see that assertion supported by any evidence. I don't think Norton read the speech; I think it's a desire to make an appeal to authority. Sort of like the professor who cited Oblak "History, section 198" to say something that seems true but ... you just can't put your finger on it, something's not quite right. When you go to track it down it takes hours before you realize it was a 350-page "article" published irregularly in German in serial form in an obscure journal in Ljubljana from 1886 to 1891 and only two libraries in the US have a copy, no library has a complete copy, and there's no copy in your half of the US. The obvious choice is to say, "Respected scholar, he dug for that evidence. Wow!" But I was that student who, confronted with the Oblak reference and an uneasy feeling, came back a month having read the entire damned thing and showing that no, something wasn't quite right, Oblak was sloppy, and there could be no argument because the data relied upon were ambiguous as hell and could mean anything. (At which point he looked angry and bothered. His response was to show me that he had just gotten the first review copy of the monograph from the publisher--*nobody* had bothered to check his multitude of obscure sources except one grad student. I like data. I find that analysis starts with "anal" and we know what comes out of that. But I love data. Don't like appeals to authority.)
Consider that Douglass' speech was interesting and entertaining. A man would have to be brave or naively trusting to give it now. He says things that are true and could go caustic--and just about the time the white audience would have its hackles raised--he flips that on its head, making them true and natural even if lamentable, and showing that judgment is inappropriate (it's already been rendered by the audience) and there's at least two sides further to consider. Douglass is pragmatic, something few fail to hold in contempt these days. In one place he derides Lincoln for inaction and lethargy--then says had he done anything differently, had he tried to rush, it would have failed entirely. He was what he was--full of prejudices; on the other hand, he was also anti-slavery to his core. If I were to teach this, I'd have students make two documents out of this--all the good things and all the critical things. And then explain why just focusing on one would be an injustice. In other words, "Things pretty much sucked--but that's how it had to be." For spoiled people in an age where impatience is a virtue, it makes no sense; that shows his wisdom and a later age's foolishness.
Consider what's almost certainly the source of the claim that Douglass' was displeased.
He was pre-eminent the white man's President, entirely devoted to the
welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the
first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the
rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the
white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an
American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon
one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His
arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring
in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect,
defend, and perpetuate slavery in the States where it existed Abraham
Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword
of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed constitutional
guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system
anywhere inside the slave States. He was willing to pursue, recapture,
and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave
rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against
the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special
objects of his consideration. Knowing this, I concede to you, my white
fellow-citizens, a pre-eminence in this worship at once full and supreme.
First, midst, and last, you and yours were the objects of his deepest
affection and his most earnest solicitude. You are the children of
Abraham Lincoln. We are at best only his step-children; children by
adoption, children by force of circumstances and necessity. To you it
especially belongs to sound his praises, to preserve and perpetuate his
memory, to multiply his statues, to hang his pictures high upon your
walls, and commend his example, for to you he was a great and glorious
friend and benefactor. Instead of supplanting you at this altar, we would
exhort you to build high his monuments; let them be of the most costly
material, of the most
cunning workmanship; let their forms be symmetrical, beautiful, and
perfect; let their bases be upon solid rocks, and their summits lean
against the unchanging blue, overhanging sky, and let them endure
forever! But while in the abundance of your wealth, and in the fulness of
your just and patriotic devotion, you do all this, we entreat you to
despise not the humble offering we this day unveil to view; for while
Abraham Lincoln saved for you a country, he delivered us from a
bondage, according to Jefferson, one hour of which was worse than
ages of the oppression your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose.
...
Fellow-citizens, I end, as I began, with congratulations. We have done a
good work for our race to-day. In doing honor to the memory of our
friend and liberator, we have been doing highest honors to ourselves
and those who come after us; we have been fastening ourselves to a
name and fame imperishable and immortal; we have also been
defending ourselves from a blighting scandal. When now it shall be said
that the colored man is soulless, that he has no appreciation of benefits
or benefactors; when the foul reproach of ingratitude is hurled at us, and
it is attempted to scourge us beyond the range of human brotherhood,
we may calmly point to the monument we have this day erected to the
memory of Abraham Lincoln.
https://edan.si.edu/transcription/pdf_files/12955.pdf
Happy Hoosier
(7,081 posts)But a statue with a black man groveling at his feet? Cmon dude. You KNOW thats degrading.