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Posts tagged as “President Abraham Lincoln”

City of Boston to Remove “Emancipation Group” Statue Depicting Formerly Enslaved Man Kneeling Before President Lincoln

City of Boston to Remove “Emancipation Group” Statue Depicting Formerly Enslaved Man Kneeling Before President Lincoln

By goodblacknews on July 5, 2020

According to cnn.com, a statue depicting a formerly enslaved man kneeling before President Abraham Lincoln in a park in Boston, MA, will be removed.

To quote cnn.com:

After two public hearings, the Boston Art Commission voted to remove the Emancipation Group, a statue installed in 1879 in Boston’s Park Square, according to a statement announcing the removal.

The statue is a replica of one in Washington DC, and has been controversial since its installation for the depiction of the freed slave.

The statue features Archer Alexander, a Black man who “assisted the Union Army, escaped slavery, and was recaptured under the Fugitive Slave Act,” the statement says.

The vote follows a nationwide movement calling for the removal of monuments that celebrate the Confederacy or viewed as racist.

“For generations, Bostonians have called for its removal 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,” the statement said.

The statue has always been criticized, but a petition started in early June renewed interest in its removal.

Tory Bullock, a Boston area actor and activist, launched the petition with the intention of getting 1,000 signatures, but quickly surpassed that goal. Currently, the petition has over 12,000 signatures.

Bullock was inspired by the social and cultural moment that Black Lives Matter protests created and felt this was a good time to reintroduce the issue.

US Postal Service Commemorates 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation with New Stamp

By goodblacknews on January 2, 2013
Emancipation Proclamation Stamp dedication

Emancipation Proclamation Stamp dedication at The National Archives by (left to right) Danny Davis, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ronald Stroman, David Ferriero, A’Leila Bundles, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon. (Photo: U.S. Postal Service)

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, creating what Deputy Postmaster General Ronald A. Stroman called, “a powerful symbol of President Lincoln’s determination to end the war, to end slavery, and to reconstruct the economy of the country without slave labor.

President Obama Recognizes 150 Anniversary Of Emancipation Proclamation

By goodblacknews on January 1, 2013

President Barack Obama views the Emancipation Proclamation with a small group of African American seniors, their grandchildren and some children from the Washington DC area, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

January 1st, 1863, is the day that the 16th President of the United States of America, President Abraham Lincoln, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, proclaiming that all slaves in the Confederacy were “forever free” because these Southern states refused to rejoin the Union and were in “rebellion” against the United States of America.

Ironically, the Union states were allowed to maintain their slaves because President Lincoln did not want to risk friction among them. Subsequently, freedmen fled to the North to join the Union Army, and slavery became the pivotal focus of the Civil War. The initial conflict began over various other reasons regarding states’ individual rights, such as taxation, the South demanding control over their own political and socio-economic infrastructure, as well as states’ resources.