Petitioner ‘beyond happy’ Hub statue to be dumped
Calls city’s process ‘blueprint’ for rest of country
It’s not yet clear when the Emancipation statue will come down, but it’s just a matter of time.
The statue just off of the Boston Common known as the Emancipation Group statue or the Freedman’s Memorial will be removed after 141 years.
Mayor Martin Walsh said in a statement, “After engaging in a public process, it’s clear that residents and visitors to Boston have been uncomfortable with this statue, and its reductive representation of the Black man’s role in the abolitionist movement. I fully support the Boston Art Commission’s decision for removal and thank them for their work.”
Walsh’s office said the date for the removal of the statue has not yet been determined, and the Boston Art Commission will talk more about the removal at its next meeting on July 14.
Local artist Tory Bullock, whose petition for change garnered 12,000 signatures, said Wednesday that he was “beyond happy” both about the decision and the way by which both the city and activists came to it.
“Process is important and Boston created a process for the rest of the country to use as a blueprint,” Bullock told the Herald. “I’m proud of my city today.
“This shows that you can get mad, get creative, and get results without anyone or anything being in danger,” he adding, “The only step left is to watch it be taken away.”
The bronze statue depicts President Abraham Lincoln with one hand on the Emancipation Proclamation and the other “raised in a gesture of benediction above the crouched figure of Archer Alexander,” an escaped slave who helped the Union army but was captured and re-enslaved under the Fugitive
Slave Act.
The mayor’s statement says people long have taken issue with the statue due to “its racist depiction of a Black person. Many also feel it implies that one person ended slavery and misrepresents the complexity of United States history.” Activists say the statue shows freedom from slavery as something granted by whites, discounting the fight by Blacks to gain it.
This comes amid a renewed focus nationwide over racial issues, as neardaily protests continue following several high-profile killings of Black people by police.