Controversial Boston Statue Of Lincoln, Freed Slave To Be Removed

BOSTON — A controversial statue that has been in Boston for more than 140 years is in its final days on display.

The Boston Arts Commission on Tuesday night unanimously voted to remove a statue showing President Abraham Lincoln standing above an almost naked Black man knelt before him. The statue, known as the Emancipation Group, will come down and go into storage. A removal date has not been determined.

"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 of our neighborhoods," Mayor Marty Walsh said in a statement. "After engaging in a public process, it’s clear that residents and visitors to Boston have been uncomfortable with this statue, and its reductive representation of the Black man’s role in the abolitionist movement."

The man crouched before Lincoln in the statue is Archer Alexander, who aided the Union Army and, after escaping slavery, was recaptured under the Fugitive Slave Act.

The statue reads, "A race set free / and the country at peace / Lincoln / Rests from his labors."

The statue has been in Park Square, next to the Back Bay's Park Plaza Hotel, since 1879. It is a copy of the Washington, D.C., original, which was created by Thomas Bell. It was gifted to Boston by local politician Moses Kimball.

Boston artist Tory Bullock's petition to get rid of the statue recently gathered 12,650 signatures.

The decision to remove the statue comes as the nation reconsiders how it celebrates its history in regard to race. Civil War-era monuments, statues and titles have been highlighted, with several coming down across the country.

"We need to engage in public dialogue and examine the inequities that exist in our public realm," Kara Elliott-Ortega, chief of arts and culture in Boston, said in a statement. "Who is represented in our artwork, which artists, and whose histories?"

There will be temporary signage installed above the statue explaining it until it is moved.