[ad_1]
“We’re happy to have taken it down this morning,” a spokeswoman for Mayor Marty Walsh mentioned in a press release to CNN.
“As expressed by so many throughout the public course of this 12 months, we totally agree that the statue needs to be relocated to a brand new publicly accessible location the place its historical past and context could be higher defined,” the spokeswoman mentioned. “The choice for removing acknowledges the statue’s position in perpetuating dangerous prejudices and obscuring the position of Black Individuals in shaping the nation’s struggle for freedom.”
Walsh’s workplace mentioned that the statue was moved to a storage facility till a brand new location is chosen.
The Boston duplicate was put in in 1879. It was donated by Moses Kimball, a politician and founding father of the Boston Museum, in keeping with the Arts and Tradition web site.
The statue was primarily based on {a photograph} of Archer Alexander, a previously enslaved man who “helped the Union Military earlier than in search of freedom for himself and his household,” in keeping with town’s web site. Alexander was recaptured a number of occasions beneath the Fugitive Slave Act.
Whereas there’s at all times been criticism of the statue, it was a neighborhood petition began in June that renewed interested by its removing.
“I am proud, I am Black and I am younger,” Bullock mentioned. “This picture has been doing a number of disservice to African Individuals in Boston and now it stops.”
A collection of digital panel discussions and short-term artwork installations this winter will have a look at “inspecting and reimagining our cultural symbols, public artwork, and histories,” the mayor’s spokeswoman mentioned.
CNN’s Taylor Romine contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
