People gathering around the Emancipation Memorial at Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C., on Friday.
Photo: olivier douliery/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesWASHINGTON—Hundreds of people were gathering Friday evening near the 144-year-old Emancipation Memorial here to debate its future, days after protesters vowed to pull down its depiction of Abraham Lincoln and a kneeling slave, and hours after President Trump signed an executive order stiffening penalties for damaging what he called “American Monuments.”
In recent days community figures have emerged who want to see the memorial altered or put in a museum instead of toppled. One of them, Marcus Goodwin, a local resident and independent candidate for the city’s District Council, climbed up onto the Emancipation Memorial last week in a bright blue suit and posed for a photograph standing alongside Lincoln. Mr. Goodwin’s point was to offer an uplifting contrast to the other figure in the bronze memorial: the slave kneeling beneath the 16th president’s outstretched hand setting him free.
“It’s important for us to have imagery that reflects us being dignified, productive and accomplished,” he said. “I want us to just see that this is an inappropriate, disturbing image. The art doesn’t achieve its intent of showing a man rising up.”
Earlier this week activists set Friday evening as the date to pull down the statue at Lincoln Park. Instead figures from both sides of the debate planned to meet there for a proposed teach-in about the monument’s history, including local historians and remarks from a Washington resident, Dan Smith, whose father was born a slave in 1863.
In the past 48 hours, the U.S. Park Service has fenced off the statue and a nearby memorial of a civil-rights activist amid the calls from some protesters to tear the memorial down, in line with recent efforts to topple monuments to Confederate generals, U.S. presidents and other figures.
Mr. Goodwin, who has launched an online petition calling for the sculpture’s removal from Lincoln Park, says there is momentum for the replacement or alteration of the Capitol Hill landmark, long resented by many black residents for its paternalistic style.
Mr. Goodwin said on Friday he wanted to see the statue moved through “peaceful, legislative measures,” adding he had counseled a young activist, Glenn Foster, 20 years old, of Maryland, against proceeding with plans to try to pull the statue down.
Mr. Goodwin said he and Mr. Foster had agreed that an educational rally on Friday would be more productive. Mr. Foster wasn’t immediately available for comment.
Mr. Goodwin said he got the idea to start the petition after seeing news reports from Boston, where local activists were calling for the removal of a replica of the statue. Also known as the Emancipation Group, the statue by Thomas Ball was dedicated in 1876 on the eve of the 11th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination, with a historic address by the orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
As a model for the figure of the kneeling slave, Ball used Archer Alexander, a slave who was the last man taken prisoner under the Fugitive Slave Act, according to the National Park Service, which owns the statue and maintains Lincoln Park.
Controversy about the statue’s iconography has reportedly existed since its unveiling. A Washington-area journalist who attended the event, John Wesley Cromwell, reported that Douglass himself offered an ad-libbed critique of the statue during his address. “He was very clear and emphatic in saying that he did not like the attitude; it showed the Negro on his knees, when a more manly attitude would have been more indicative of freedom," Mr. Cromwell wrote.
Civil-rights activist Freeman H.M. Murray later criticized the posture of the Emancipation Monument figures as resembling religious figures.
“Ball has come perilously near making Mr. Lincoln appear to be saying: ’Go, and sin no more,’ or, ’Thy sins be forgiven thee,’” Murray wrote in 1917. But he also called the statues “striking and appealing” figures “which so many of my fellow-citizens and fellow-sufferers have highly regarded if not revered.”
The monument has been a touchstone for other black residents in Washington, some of whom planned to join Friday’s demonstration. Organizers said they would include re-enactors portraying Douglass and Charlotte Scott, the former slave whose $5 donation after Lincoln’s assassination was the first contribution toward the funding of what was then known as the Freedmen’s Memorial Monument.
Mr. Goodwin said he wanted to see the memorial moved to the National Museum of African American History and Culture or the African American Civil War Museum, where it could be presented in a context that reflected the objection that it appeared to show black people as subservient. Alternatively, Mr. Goodwin said, the statue could be altered to include an additional figure—a black historical contemporary of Lincoln, standing at his side.
Mr. Goodwin said Friday he believed momentum was growing to either move or alter the statue.
“I think that we’re well on our way and on the right path,” he said.
Write to Ted Mann at ted.mann@wsj.com
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
"gather" - Google News
June 27, 2020 at 07:07AM
https://ift.tt/2ZbXETn
Hundreds Gather Around Now Fenced Off Lincoln Statue in D.C. - The Wall Street Journal
"gather" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2Sqdbwp
https://ift.tt/2Yjhqxs
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Hundreds Gather Around Now Fenced Off Lincoln Statue in D.C. - The Wall Street Journal"
Post a Comment