ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass was ripped from its base in Rochester on the anniversary of one of his most famous speeches, delivered in that city in 1852.
Police said the statue of Douglass was taken on Sunday from Maplewood Park, a site along the Underground Railroad where Douglass and Harriet Tubman helped shuttle slaves to freedom.
The statue was found at the brink of the Genesee River gorge about 50 feet (15 meters) from its pedestal, police said. There was damage to the base and a finger.
In Rochester on July 5, 1852, Douglass gave the speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” in which he called the celebration of liberty a sham in a nation that enslaves and oppresses its Black citizens.
To a slave, Douglass said, Independence Day is “a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”
Carvin Eison, a leader of the project that brought the Douglass statue to the park, told the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle another statue will take its place because the damage is too significant.
“Is this some type of retaliation because of the national fever over confederate monuments right now? Very disappointing, it’s beyond disappointing,” Eison told WROC.
First time I went to Memphis, I got a cab at the airport and headed into town, to stay at the Peabody Hotel. The driver was a central-casting local. He didn’t say much to me, and made me a little nervous. As we went past the park downtown, he pointed to a statue of a guy on a horse and said “do you know who that is?”. No. “That’s a statue of General Forest”.
Oh, the guy who founded tke KKK? “Yes, that’s him. Do you know why that statue is facing South?”.
No.
“So that the horse’s ass is in the Yankee’s face…”
It was a long two minutes to the Peabody. I didn’t tip him.
“Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.”
[“Is this some type of retaliation because of the national fever over confederate monuments right now? Very disappointing, it’s beyond disappointing,” Eison told WROC.]
That’s the general idea. The “beyond” part.
I grew up in the finger lakes area. Recently I read an article about a guy who used a google functionality to do a search that produced a map of where militant racism was in this country. Alabama was one hot area. Upstate New York thru Pennsylvania into Ohio was another, comparable to Alabama. Like I say, I grew up there, and can attest to this.
I’m sure Mr. Trump will post a tweet decrying the action…