[FirstFlaBn]

I’m disappointed to see that The Federalist’s headline writer doesn’t know that ‘Shutdown’ is a noun.

On the statue, why is Lincoln stopping the black guy from getting comfortable in his sprinter’s stance? (”For my next impression, Jesse Owens”)

[sphinx]

On the statue: Lincoln has one hand on the Emancipation Proclamation and the other outstretched as a blessing or benediction. He is not touching the rising figure before him. That figure is a bondsman portrayed at the moment of emancipation. He is shirtless, with his back bared to the sun or lash. The manacles are still on his wrists but the chains are broken. He is not kneeling; he is rising to freedom. He is not a supplicant to Lincoln, who is standing to one side while the rising figure's eyes are gazing straight ahead and upwards, looking right past Lincoln. The rising figure is modeled on Archer Alexander, the last man captured under the fugitive slave act.

This monument was suggested initially by a former slave, Charlotte Scott of Virginia, who sent the first $5 she had earned in freedom as the initial contribution. The funds were raised entirely by freedmen, the bulk from black Union veterans of the Civil War. The largest contribution came from a regiment of buffalo soldiers in Kansas.

This is THEIR memorial. The vandals want to tear it down and cancel their presence in the public square. To do this in the name of "black lives matter" is an obscenity. Dante needs to come out of retirement and dig some deeper circles of hell for the vicious, lying, ignorant ingrates who are offended by the preeminent monument erected by the freedmen themselves to Lincoln and emancipation.

Check that. There is no circle of hell deep enough.

It has been a stimulating week at Lincoln Park. It was great on Friday to have the black patriots out in force. If another attempt is made on the Emancipation Memorial, I hope it is met with black reenactors with bayonetted rifles.