Free Republic

On this weekend, in the midst of an attempted revolution of halfwits, when the visage of Lincoln has once again been thrust before our eyes, I’m reminded of a bit of history I came across several years ago. In the 1930s, as part of the Depression-era WPA programs meant to lessen the burden of unemployment among the educated, a government oral history program was initiated. Elderly people who had lived through or witnessed historical events were interviewed about what they had seen, in order to flesh out the official records with new points of view. In the South, this meant...

With a rousing Independence Day speech at Mount Rushmore, President Trump certainly laid down the principles on which he will now go to the hustings. His choice of a setting put him before the famed monument to four presidents — each of which is a target of the movement that has been seeking to besmirch or destroy statues of our national leaders. Mr. Trump left no doubt in respect of which side he is on. Snip . . .

The Boston Arts Commission voted unanimously Tuesday night to remove a public monument depicting President Abraham Lincoln standing before a freed slave. The Emancipation Memorial in Park Square — a replica of the original standing in Washington, D.C. — will be taken down with an art conservator “to document, recommend how the bronze statue is removed, supervise its removal and placement into temporary storage,” the motion reads. “As we continue our work to make Boston a more equitable and just city, it’s important that we look at the stories being told by the public art in all our neighborhoods,” Boston...

Some University of Wisconsin-Madison students of color want the university to remove one of its most iconic landmarks, a statue of Abraham Lincoln, because of what they see as the former president’s anti-indigenous and anti-Black history despite Lincoln’s legacy of ending slavery in the U.S. Two student organizations, the Black Student Union and the Student Inclusion Coalition, pushed for the statue’s removal in early June, days after George Floyd died in Minneapolis police custody and protests erupted nationally over racial injustice.

The statue was supposed to come down last night. It did not, but reading through this thorough Examiner write-up of the gathering and what preceded it, you get the sense that it’s a matter of time before a serious attempt is made. The organizer of the tear-it-down group is Harvard student (of course) Glenn Foster, who leads a group called Freedom Neighborhood. According to the Examiner, the group’s advance planning for bringing down the monument went as far to involve “human shields” while the act was done. (“[W]e need white people to be willing to put their bodies between the...

Prior to the Charlottesville debacle regarding a Confederate general’s statue in summer 2017, I had been researching for some time on the life of Frederick Douglass. Before the uproar over the Robert E. Lee’s likeness in a public park in Old Dominion, I had taken up Douglass scholarship to learn about America’s slave past, the Civil War, and its aftermath, because so much in our current civic discussion has been affected by the historical reality of slavery. I was interested in developing a theatrical work about Douglass’ life, which I believed would entertain the audience, while elevating public discourse about...

Protesters held a rally on Friday evening in Washington D.C. as they continued to call for the removal of a statue of President Abraham Lincoln and a freed black man. The statue, which is located in Lincoln Park, is known as the Emancipation Memorial or Freedman's Memorial and depicts an African-American man in a loincloth who is seen kneeling at the president's feet. The depiction is seen as offensive with critics calling it 'paternalistic' which have led to calls for its removal.

This video shows Jack (in blue) getting liquid thrown on him, pushed, punched, robbed, mobbed, life threatened by Antifa in Lincoln Park. Police saved Jack - who is pressing charges

Barriers have been erected around Abraham Lincoln's emancipation memorial in Washington DC after protesters, angry that the freed blacks who funded the sculpture had no say in the design, have pledged to tear it down. The Emancipation Memorial in Washington DC depicts a freed slave kneeling at Abraham Lincoln's feet. Critics said the statue, originally constructed in 1876 to celebrate liberation, looks more like black subservience and white supremacy in 2020. SNIP '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,...

"Some want D.C.'s Lincoln statue gone. Others point out: Freed Black Americans paid for it."

""I'm here to speak on behalf of the legacy of Charlotte Scott," said Marcia Cole, a member of the Female RE-Enactors of Distinction (FREED) who portrays Scott. FREED is an auxiliary organization of the African American Civil War Museum. "I understand there's a big campaign trying to raise money to either take it down or mend it, and I say 'no' on behalf of Ms. Charlotte," she said. "People tend to think of that figure as being servile but on second look you will see something different, perhaps. That man is not kneeling on two knees with his head bowed....

Under fire from ignorant iconoclasts, the Emancipation Memorial shows a former slave 'exerting his own strength with strained muscles in breaking the chain which had bound him.' Black Lives Matter Protesters have threatened to tear down the Emancipation Memorial in Washington. District of Columbia Delegate to Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton also called for the “problematic” statue’s removal from Lincoln Park, alleging the statue fails to note how enslaved African Americans pushed for their emancipation. Norton said former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass “expressed his displeasure” at its unveiling.In truth, Frederick Douglass predicted members of his race looking back at its...

Friends and Fellow-citizens: I warmly congratulate you upon the highly interesting object which has caused you to assemble in such numbers and spirit as you have today. This occasion is in some respects remarkable. Wise and thoughtful men of our race, who shall come after us, and study the lesson of our history in the United States; who shall survey the long and dreary spaces over which we have traveled; who shall count the links in the great chain of events by which we have reached our present position, will make a note of this occasion; they will think of...

NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace said he is "absolutely" reinvigorated to help advocate for social change and educate others after an alleged racist incident in his team's garage over the weekend. Wallace joined "The View" Tuesday and explained his current perspective about what comes next after NASCAR's massive show of support at Monday's race as the FBI joined the investigation into Sunday's incident at Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, Alabama.

American Sculpture to Brahm's "Tragic Overture." Follows Lorado Taft's 1903 book, "The History of American Sculpture." Includes William Rush, John Frazee, Horatio Greenough, Hiram Powers, Thomas Crawford, Erastus Dow Palmer, Thomas Ball, Anne Whitney, Randolph Rogers, John Rogers, Harriet Goodhue Hosmer, John Quincy Adams Ward, Augustus Sint Gaudens, Daniel Chester French, Lorado Taft and Gutzon Borgium. Remember that these sculptures aren't just our history, they're our art.

In the years leading up to the Civil War, many Northerners and Southerners alike wanted the federal government to take a more aggressive approach toward acquiring new territory. In fact, some private citizens, known as filibusters, took matters into their own hands. They raised small armies illegally; ventured into Mexico, Cuba, and South America; and attempted to seize control of the lands. One particularly successful filibuster, William Walker, actually made himself president of Nicaragua and ruled from 1856 to 1857. For the most part, these filibusters were just men in search of adventure. Others, however, were Southern imperialists who wanted...

Boston’s mayor has said he supports calls to either remove or change a statue which depicts Abraham Lincoln standing over a freed slave who is crouched on his knees. Mayor Marty Walsh has come under pressure this weekend to have the city haul away the monument after an online petition calling for the removal of the Emancipation Memorial in Park Square in downtown went viral. As of Monday afternoon, more than 8,400 people signed the petition, which was started by a local resident from the neighborhood of Mission Hill.

United America Will Stand - Not kneel! Treason and tyranny are ancient and succeed due to deception and ignorance based upon lies and mental laziness. However, tyranny endures well in a culture of fear due to viable threats, the demonstration of physical force, and outright violence. What Americans and the entire world are seeing in this time is an attempt at overthrowing the United States of America. The worst enemy is the internal enemy because those ones once trusted, are different from who they appeared to be in a different time, or in a different light. America now has to...

The city of Jacksonville’s inventory for Confederate memorials lists three monuments and eight markers on city property related to the Civil War. As of Tuesday morning, there was one less, and Mayor Lenny Curry said the others are coming down, too. Crews were seen overnight using a crane to remove a Confederate monument in Jacksonville’s Hemming Park, the downtown city plaza framed on two sides by City Hall and the Federal Courthouse. The statue and nameplate were hauled off well before daylight, leaving an empty pedestal.

Amid the recent fury of protests, a group in London aimed to deface a statue. The sculpted target of anti-racism activists: The man who freed the slaves and was murdered for it. They covered the monument with signs and spray paint, as well as the names of black Americans who died during contentious incidents involving the police. clip It’s a strange place where that man, of all historical figures, is attacked by those fighting, it would seem, for what he promoted — the difference being he clashed with a world opposed to equality’s virtue, whereas we now live in a...