Statue Celebrating Lincoln's Emancipation of Slaves Removed from Boston
A statue of Abraham Lincoln with a freed slave appearing to kneel at his feet has been removed from downtown Boston.
Workers removed the Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Emancipation Group and the Freedman’s Memorial, early Tuesday from a park just off Boston Common where it had stood since 1879.
City officials had agreed in late June to take down the memorial after complaints and a bitter debate over the design.
Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh said at the time that the statue made residents and visitors “uncomfortable.”
The bronze statue is a copy of a monument that was erected in Washington, D.C., three years earlier. The copy was installed in Boston because the city was home to the statue’s creator, Thomas Ball.
It was created to celebrate the freeing of slaves in America and was based on Archer Alexander, a black man who escaped slavery, helped the Union Army and was the last man recaptured under the Fugitive Slave Act.
Freed black donors paid for the original in Washington.
The inscription on both reads: “A race set free and the country at peace. Lincoln rests from his labors.”
More than 12,000 people had signed a petition demanding the statue’s removal, and Boston’s public arts commission voted unanimously to take it down.
The statue was to be placed in storage until the city decides whether to display it in a museum.
The memorial had been in Boston’s crosshairs since at least 2018, when it launched a comprehensive review of public sculptures, monuments and other artworks. The arts commission said it was paying extra attention to works with “problematic histories.”
Last summer, protesters vowed to tear down the original statue in Washington, prompting the National Guard to deploy a detachment to guard it.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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