Boston removes statue of slave kneeling before Lincoln

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Source: The Hill

A statue of a freed slave kneeling at the feet of Abraham Lincoln was removed from downtown Boston early Tuesday.

The Emancipation Memorial featuring the former president was taken down by city workers where it has stood near Boston Common since 1879, The Associated Press reported.

The bronze statue is inscribed with the text: "A race set free and the country at peace. Lincoln rests from his labors."

The statue was reportedly inspired in part by Archer Alexander, a Black man who escaped slavery went on to help the Union Army. He was the last man recaptured under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.



Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/boston-removes-statue-of-slave-kneeling-before-lincoln/ar-BB1ckcoy?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=DELLDHP

[abqtommy]

1. This statue would not even be on my list of objectionable things, but I guess since statues

praising confederate traitors/racists are being removed then a tribute to Emancipation's gotta go too.

[ProfessorGAC]

2. I'm Guessing It's The Kneeling Position

I can see how some would find that objectionable.
But, I'm ambivalent about the decision because it is, after all, Lincoln.

[CTyankee]

3. Put it in a museum where it can be a teaching tool to kids in learning Lindoln's history and

this inappropriate message about slaves' emancipation.

[Evolve Dammit]

4. Mixed feelings. What was the sculptor's intent to portray? Need more information.

[NYC Liberal]

5. There was another very similar statue where the intent was to show

Lincoln gesturing for the former slave to rise up. Not sure if the same is true for this one.

[Evolve Dammit]

9. Now that would be cool. Difficult to know unless sculptor's intent is recorded?

[NYC Liberal]

17. Looks like that's what it is. It's a copy of the Emancipation Memorial

in DC, which was funded exclusively by former slaves.

However, Frederick Douglass didn’t like the design:

After delivering the speech, Frederick Douglass immediately wrote a letter to the editor of the National Republican newspaper in Washington, which was published five days later on April 19, 1876. In his letter Douglass criticized the statue's design, and suggested the park could be improved by more dignified monuments of free Black people. “The negro here, though rising, is still on his knees and nude”, Douglass wrote. “What I want to see before I die is a monument representing the negro, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man.” This long-forgotten vital American artifact was found Saturday, June 27, 2020, in a search of Newspapers.com, by Scott Sandage, a history professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, in collaboration with Jonathan W. White, who teaches at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. Sandage and White sit on the board of the Abraham Lincoln Institute. Sandage alerted Mr. White and texted an image of the letter to David Blight, a Douglass biographer and history professor at Yale University.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Memorial

[Evolve Dammit]

18. Great information. I wonder if anything exists from the sculptor, in terms of interpretation.

Ball seems like he didn't engage with the public from the brief bio.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

6. The artist cast one word into the base of the statue: Emancipation.

I'm guessing that's what he meant to portray.

But, art can be subjective and impressionist, so may trigger any number of feelings in any number of people. To avoid offending, remove statues, and any other art forms.

[Hekate]

7. Well, okay. I'd love to see the drawings & models of the replacement honoring -- something

All over the South the Daughters of the Confederacy erected heroic statues to the men who fought to keep Black people enslaved. Those were the statues that loomed over Southern communities for about a century, before they finally recently started coming down, and even now racists are plenty sore about their removal.

We fought a Civil War. The South wanted to retain its fine traditions, which were basically slavery. We have photos of some of the freed slaves — one in particular of a man baring his back to display the deep corded keloid scars on his back, testament to numerous whippings. We have oral testimonies and written testimonies from survivors.

There were Black heroes who spoke and wrote and were activists against slavery. We honor them to this day. But slavery was not going to end in the United States without federal legislation, and they and everybody else knew it.

As it happened, Abraham Lincoln was the president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation to set these people free. (At which point we fought a Civil War.) Did he or didn’t he do this? Does he or doesn’t he deserve a statue?

Were Black people in a state of subjugation (on their knees) before then or were they not? Would changing the pose of the freed slave to standing upright make the difference to a modern sensibility? Is there something shameful to Black people today about their ancestors having once been enslaved? Shouldn’t all of us have to reckon with that in our public art, or should it be smoothed over somehow?

Do we have to melt down that statue and start over in order to align with modern feelings? This statue is a particular rendition of our common history, from a particular time — What exactly are we rectifying in removing it? If a different interpretation of history is called for now, would it be served by erecting a companion statue rather than removing the original?

Just asking for a friend, as it were.

[Evolve Dammit]

10. Really good questions. Thanks

[JohnnyRingo]

8. This is just fodder for the right.

They would just love to have something that says the Cancel Culture has gone too far.
I think they just found something. The mayor better have a back up gig.

[Faygo Kid]

14. See my post #13.

The right loses this one.

[JohnnyRingo]

19. Let's hope we don't keep that factoid under our collar.

I'm sure it's true, but Sean Hannity isn't going to mention that while he's frothing at the left's disrespect for The Great Emancipator. It doesn't help that it's been there since the 19th century.

[LanternWaste]

11. I'd entertain the slave kneeling replaced with a confederate solider kneeling.

And juxtapose the engraving to "A country set free and the race at peace..." to trigger with the dull-witted.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. They certainly wouldn't like that.

[apnu]

21. Nah. We should have a statue of a black man standing tall and confident

Maybe standing next to Lincoln if you want to keep it tied to Emancipation.

Let's not tear people down further, that negativity feeds the Lost Cause loonies. Let's build people up and ignore the Lost Cause loonies so they can die in a pool of obscurity and regret as they should.

[Faygo Kid]

13. Lincoln wanted no one to kneel to him. He would approve.

When he finally visited Richmond at the end of the War, the freed slaves ran to greet him, while the whites pulled their shades and stayed inside. Those who ran to greet him got on their knees to praise him, but Lincoln told them to stand up, as they should only get on their knees to God.

I love Abraham Lincoln. He has made a huge, positive difference in my life.

[NYC Liberal]

16. I think that's what this statue may be portraying.

It’s a copy of one in DC that was funded by former slaves and Frederick Douglass.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Memorial

[BumRushDaShow]

15. Good

And let's move on....

There has been so much past history shoveled in big heaps all around and that continues to use up valuable "knowledge space" with "glorification", "subjugation", and "conquest", that by the time one moves forward in time to learn "modern" history, there's little incentive leftto find out what happened just yesterday.

I.e., so much has been spent on the "wars of the past", with "the battle of this" and "the battle of that", that we are actually left with those who should know better - elected officials - who are completely oblivious to basic Civics 101, waving around confederate flags, and completely lost in time.

[jmowreader]

20. I know what to replace it with

Put Lincoln in about the same pose he is in now, but make the freedman stand upright and have him shaking Lincoln’s hand. At their feet will be broken chains to depict Lincoln’s “breaking the chains” of slavery by signing the Emancipation Proclamation.