Focus on this artwork and discuss the abstract.
The Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Freedman's Memorial or the Emancipation Group is a monument in Lincoln Park in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was sometimes referred to as the "Lincoln Memorial" before the more prominent so-named memorial was dedicated in 1922.Designed and sculpted by Thomas Ball and erected in 1876, the monument depicts Abraham Lincoln holding a copy of his Emancipation Proclamation freeing a male African American slave modeled on Archer Alexander. The ex-slave is depicted on one knee, about to stand up, with one fist clenched, shirtless and broken shackles at the president's feet.The Emancipation Memorial statue was funded by the wages of freed slaves. The statue originally faced west towards the U.S. Capitol until it was rotated east in 1974 in order to face the newly erected Mary McLeod Bethune Memorial.The statue is a contributing monument to the Civil War Monuments in Washington, D.C., on the National Register of Historic Places.
National Register of Historic Places president Lincoln Park African American so-named memorial Washington, D.C. slave U.S. Capitol Thomas Ball Archer Alexander Abraham Lincoln Emancipation Proclamation Capitol Hill Civil War Monuments in Washington, D.C. Lincoln Memorial Mary McLeod Bethune Memorial