Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
Star Parker, founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), held a rally on Tuesday to save the Emancipation Memorial that depicts President Abraham Lincoln and a slave modeled on Archer Alexander, the last slave captured under the Fugitive Slave Act, on one knee rising from his chains. Former slaves paid for this statue.
President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, ending human bondage in the United States. The Emancipation Memorial, also known as Freedman’s Memorial, is in Lincoln Park in the nation’s capital. Leftists, fueled by the anti-police wave, want it torn down. They call it racist, but this accusation betrays their ignorance. They wrongly assume the man is kneeling before Lincoln.
D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton wants the statue removed and placed in a museum. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser, to her credit, doesn’t want a mob to decide.
Various news publications wrote about CURE’s Emancipation Celebration rally.
Parker organized Tuesday’s celebration event, which was attended by African American leaders such as longtime civil rights activist Robert Woodson, Dr. Diana Schaub, Loyola University (MD), Ryan Bomberger, founder of The Radiance Foundation, Clarence Weaver, motivational speaker, Pastor Jim Boothby of New Hope Family, Pastor Marc Little, and Dr. William B. Allen, COO of UrbanCURE.
The Washington Post, front page of the Metro section:
Critics say the District’s Emancipation Memorial — which shows Lincoln holding a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation as an African American man in a loincloth kneels at his feet — is demeaning and suggests African Americans were not active contributors to the cause of their own freedom, remaining subservient even after they were released from their bonds.
“I have lived in D.C. my entire life, and never have I looked at this statue and felt uplifted by its intended positive message,” a sign written in red, black and green marker said.
But supporters of the monument, including [CURE COO Dr. William] Allen and dozens of conservative black thought leaders, pastors and politicians who came to the nation’s capital to defend the embattled statue, say its critics are misreading the statue and ignoring its history.
Echoing the tone President Trump has taken in recent tweets about nationwide protests, they called Black Lives Matter protesters anarchists, communists and traitors. They held signs declaring that “not all black Americans agree with BLM.”
“We do not believe that America is so systematically racist that we should divide ourselves now and start having discussions with domestic terrorists about which statues stand and which statues fall,” Star Parker, president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, said at a rally Tuesday in the District’s Lincoln Park.
“This country was founded on the rule of law, and if [this] statue should come down, then it is up to the local governments and local city councils and local mayors to make that determination,” she said.
The Washington Times, front page:
Star Parker, founder of the nonprofit UrbanCURE, held an “emancipation celebration” Tuesday at Lincoln Park, site of the now fenced-off bronze statue on the Capitol Hill, to promote a petition drive urging Congress to “keep this statue alive, right here.”
“This Emancipation Memorial should be a reminder to never to see any group — any group — of persons as non-persons, whether born or unborn, and that America’s history is best relayed by reality, not revised by mob mentality,” Ryan Bomberger, founder of the educational nonprofit Radiance Foundation, said at the event.
“Before BLM demands that white folk learn black history, perhaps black folk like D.C. Mayor Bowser and congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton need to learn more black history,” Parker said in announcing the event.
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“This Emancipation Memorial was literally paid for by former slaves,” the petition website stated. “Help us preserve this historic statue in Lincoln Park that Black Lives Matter, liberals and Antifa want to destroy. Help us sustain the deep history of African Americans and the freedom they fought and died for.”
“African art contains the symbol of the crouching lion in order to convey the prospect of the pouncing king. See how strongly Archer Alexander’s figure resembles the crouching lion, whether in photograph or in stone,” said William B. Allen, a professor of political philosophy at Michigan State University. “So let those who think this is a degrading figure, rethink.”
Don’t forget to sign the petition to protect the Emancipation Memorial!
