Protesters have vowed to get rid of the statue of President Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln Park, Washington DC, amid calls for ‘offensive’ and ‘racist’ monuments to be retired for good.
The Lincoln Emancipation Memorial shows the 16th US president standing next to a freed kneeling African American slave.
While the critics acknowledge that the monument originally celebrated liberation, some suggest that it has no place in the modern world and that it now boasts of white supremacy.
The Emancipation Memorial was erected in Lincoln Park back in 1876, whereas an exact copy of it – which is also being targeted by BLM protesters – was placed in Boston three years later.
The Washington DC statue was financed by African American donors, whereas its inscription reads: “A race set free and the country at peace. Lincoln rests from his labors.” As the critics argue, however, the freed people of color had no say in the monument’s design.
After the protesters vowed to get rid of the statue, National Guard was deployed to protect the monument whereas tall barriers have been raised around it to stop the protesters from getting close.
While the police confirmed that “they will not allow for the destruction of property in the city,” the Washington DC mayor advised the protesters to take the correct approach and petition for the statue’s removal.
Despite the calls for joint talks, The Freedom Neighborhood, the group opposing the Lincoln statue, is determined to “create change … by any means necessary.”
“We’re kicking off the revolution with a series of shutting down the Capitol events and bringing attention to the injustices in the black community starting with Lincoln Park, a statue that embodies the racial undertones of black people being inferior to white people,” the group wrote on social media.
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Replaced!