New Monuments in Richmond, VA
The Emancipation and Freedom Monument honors the abolition of slavery.
One figure, facing east, is that of a Black woman holding a baby in one arm while the other is raised triumphantly holding a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. The second figure, facing west, is of a bare-chested Black man with whip marks on his back. Chains fall from his outstretched arms.
The monument was designed by Thomas Jay Warren of Oregon and shows a man, woman and child newly emancipated from enslavement. The man’s back is lined with scars from whipping and the woman is holding aloft a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation.
The unveiling of this powerful new symbol of racial justice came just two weeks after the largest state-owned symbol of white supremacy and Black oppression — a state-owned statue of slavery-defending Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee — was taken down from Monument Avenue. Virginia senator Jennifer McClellan led the commissioning of the statue. According to McClellan, “it’s the first state-funded statue celebrating emancipation in the US.”
The 12-foot bronze Emancipation and Freedom Monument honors the abolition of slavery and will be a permanent statue on Brown’s Island in Richmond, VA.
The base of the new monument contains the names and brief descriptions of 10 Virginians who contributed to the fight for freedom and equality. Five were chosen to represent the time before Emancipation: slave rebellion leaders Gabriel and Nat Turner; Dred Scott, whose unsuccessful lawsuit for his freedom led to the 1857 US Supreme Court decision declaring that people of African descent had no rights under the US Constitution; William Harvey Carney, who fought with the Massachusetts 54th Infantry Regiment of the US Colored Troops and was the first African American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor; and Mary Jane Richards Bowser, a spy in the Confederate White House in Richmond who provided useful information to Union officials.
Five Virginians were chosen to represent the time after Emancipation to 1970: Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and chief of staff to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; John Mercer Langston, Virginia’s first African American representative in Congress; Lucy Simms, an teacher who advocated for universal education; John Mitchell Jr., the fiery newspaper editor of The Richmond Planet who led a boycott of Richmond’s segregated trolley system and was the first African American to run for governor of Virginia; and Rosa Dixon Bowser, educator and women’s rights activist who founded the first African American teachers association in Virginia and the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam said that he hopes the statues will serve as symbols of hope and the enduring will to fight for freedom.
