Boston’s mayor considers removing Emancipation Memorial showing Abraham Lincoln standing over a freed slave after thousands sign petition demanding it be dismantled
- Emancipation Memorial in downtown Boston’s Park Square was erected in 1876
- It shows Abraham Lincoln standing over freed slave who is kneeling below him
- African American resident of Boston’s Mission Hill area started petition
- Tony Bullock’s petition demanded that the statue be removed
- Mayor Marty Walsh said he is open to either removing or changing the statue
- Statues and monuments to historical figures have been removed nationwide
- Black Lives Matter supporters want statues removed after George Floyd’s death
Boston’s mayor has said he supports calls to either remove or change a statue which depicts Abraham Lincoln standing over a freed slave who is crouched on his knees.
Mayor Marty Walsh has come under pressure this weekend to have the city haul away the monument after an online petition calling for the removal of the Emancipation Memorial in Park Square in downtown went viral.
As of Monday afternoon, more than 8,400 people signed the petition, which was started by a local resident from the neighborhood of Mission Hill.
The statue in the city’s Park Square is a replica of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington and depicts Lincoln with one hand raised above a kneeling man with broken shackles on his wrists.
Boston’s mayor is considering whether to remove or recommission a statue, the Emancipation Memorial (seen above in downtown’s Park Square), that depicts Abraham Lincoln standing over a freed slave who is kneeling
Mayor Marty Walsh has come under pressure this weekend to have the city haul away the monument after an online petition calling for the removal of the Emancipation Memorial went viral
The statue is meant to show Lincoln freeing the man from slavery, but a petition against the statue says it ‘instead represents us still beneath someone else.’
‘I’ve been watching this man on his knees since I was a kid,’ the petition’s author, Tony Bullock, wrote.
‘I would always ask myself “If he’s free why is he still on his knees?”
‘No kid should have to ask themselves that question anymore.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh (above) has indicated that he supports either removing or recommissioning the statue in favor of one that recognized equality
‘If you feel the same then sign the petition!’
Bullock posted a video to Facebook calling on Walsh to tear down the statue of work with ‘artists that can erect that black man so he can stand up on his two feet…then can be shaking hands.’
Walsh’s office told Boston.com that the mayor is interested in recommissioning the statue in favor of one that sends a message of recognizing equality.
The statue was sculpted by Thomas Ball and erected in 1876 to pay homage to Lincoln, who is credited with ending the institution of slavery.
The freed slave depicted in the statue is modeled after Archer Alexander, a former slave.
The statue in Boston is a carbon copy of the same monument located in Lincoln Park in Washington, DC.
Since the May 25 death of George Floyd, cities and states across the country have faced calls from Black Lives Matter protesters to remove statues of figures from the Confederacy.
There have also been calls to do away with statues honoring some of the country’s early founders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
In Boston, the city removed a statue of Christopher Columbus, the famed Italian explorer who discovered America, after it was beheaded by vandals, WBZ-TV reported.
The city of Boston last week removed a beheaded statue of Christopher Columbus from a park near the predominantly Italian neighborhood of North End
Columbus, who is honored with a national holiday in the United States and other countries in the Americas, is a controversial figure who symbolizes historic injustices committed against indigenous populations by European settlers.
Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died in the custody of Minneapolis police after one of the officers, Derek Chauvin, who is white, knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes, cutting off his air supply.
Chauvin and three other officers have since been fired and criminally charged. Floyd’s death touched off mass outrage worldwide.