Frederick Douglass delivered Lincoln reality check at Emancipation Memorial

[David Lockmiller]

I found some additional noteworthy information in a publication called the HillRag:

Monday Emancipation Day Celebration in Lincoln Park
'Douglass' and 'Grant' Star in Recreation of ‘Emancipation Memorial’ Dedication Ceremony
By Elizabeth O'Gorek -April 17, 2018

In remarks delivered prior to the ceremony, National Park Service Ranger Vince Vaise noted that the funding drive for the statue was initiated by a five-dollar donation from a former slave named Charlotte Scott, then living in a refugee camp in Wisconsin. According to the plaque affixed to the statue, the “Freedmen Statue,” was funded entirely by African-Americans, many of them Union Veterans.

The statue has been the subject of controversy virtually since it was unveiled. While attending the ceremony, Douglass was reported as saying that the statue “showed the Negro on his knee when a more manly attitude would have been indicative of freedom.” Although the figure represents a freed slave, he is depicted shackled to the base of the statue. An alternative pose, where the African-American held a rifle, was considered and rejected.

The D.C. Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862 that ended slavery in Washington DC freed 3,100 individuals, reimbursed those who had legally owned them and offered the newly freed women and men money to emigrate. The legislation and the courage and struggle of those who fought to make it a reality is commemorated every April 16 on DC Emancipation Day. In the late nineteenth century, the celebration often took place on the date of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, April 14, as did the statue’s dedication in 1876.