Last weekend, the Emancipation Memorial in Washington D.C. became the latest flashpoint in the emotionally charged and culturally sensitive debate over public statues. Historically significant as perhaps the only monument in the Capitol paid for entirely by emancipated slaves (mostly Union veterans), the bronze statue depicts Abraham Lincoln standing erect with a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and extending a beneficent hand to a kneeling slave amidst broken shackles.
Regrettably, the former slaves who paid for the memorial were not consulted in the design. Even in its day, the statue’s contrast of postures attracted criticisms from prominent African Americans like Frederick Douglass, who thought “a more manly attitude” for the slave “would have been indicative of freedom” and of the role African Americans had in securing their liberties. The same criticisms persist today, recently inflamed with reminders of racial injustices.
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