David W. Blight has a really nice op-ed about the Freedmen’s Monument, which some people want to tear down: “A huge parade involving nearly every black organization in the city preceded the dedication of the monument on April 14, 1876. . . . Horse-drawn carriages transported master of ceremonies and Howard University law school dean, John Mercer Langston, and the orator of the day, Frederick Douglass, a resident of that neighborhood. . . . The $20,000 used to build the monument had been raised among black Americans, most of them former slaves.”
The Smithsonian has the text of Douglass’s speech.
Timothy Sandefur has more on Douglass’s views of the memorial.
Tags: racism