In this artwork, how is the Criticism discussed?
Rodney Young of American University wrote that:
If there is one slavery monument whose origins are highly political, the Freedman's memorial is it. The development process for this memorial started immediately after Abraham Lincoln's assassination and ended, appropriately enough, near the end of Reconstruction in 1876. In many ways, it exemplified and reflected the hopes, dreams, striving, and ultimate failures of reconstruction.
The monument has been criticized for its paternalistic character and for not doing justice to the role that African Americans played in their own liberation. While the funds for the monument were raised from former slaves, a white artist conceived the original design. An alternative design depicting Lincoln with uniformed black Union soldiers was rejected as too expensive. According to historian Kirk Savage, a witness to the memorial's dedication recorded Frederick Douglass as saying that the statue "showed the Negro on his knees when a more manly attitude would have been indicative of freedom". In a recently uncovered letter from Douglass that appeared in the National Republican five days after the dedication, he said that the monument did not tell the "whole truth of any subject which it might be designed to illustrate". Douglass also says that Abraham Lincoln breaks the slave's chains in this monument, however the granting of his citizenship to the United States is not represented in this monument."
What I want to see before I die is a monument representing the negro, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man. There is room in Lincoln park for another monument, and I throw out this suggestion to the end that it may be taken up and acted upon.
Jonathan White and Scott Sandage, two historians who rediscovered the letter, detailed their findings in Smithsonian Magazine in June 2020. They saw in it "a solution to the current impasse" over the Emancipation Memorial. Since no one statue could provide the whole truth, they suggested enriching the memorial group by adding statues of Charlotte Scott, whose contribution began the process, and Frederick Douglass, who dedicated the original monument, to create a new "Emancipation Group", as the monument was sometimes called. Lincoln biographer Sidney Blumenthal noted that the kneeling slave was a widespread abolitionist motif, appearing on the masthead of William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator.
chain African American slave Scott Sandage abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison American University African Americans Abraham Lincoln Smithsonian Magazine Frederick Douglass Republic National Republican