As part of its commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and abolition of slavery in the United States, the Virginia Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Commission is constructing the Emancipation Proclamation and Freedom Monument on Brown’s Island in Richmond, Virginia.
Donations are being requested to complete this project.
The monument, designed by Thomas Jay Warren of Oregon, will feature a 12-foot bronze statue representing newly freed slaves. Dedicated to the contributions of African American Virginians in the centuries-long fight for emancipation and freedom, the monument also will highlight notable African American Virginians who have made significant contributions to the emancipation and freedom of formerly enslaved persons or descendants. The base of the monument will feature the names, images, and brief biographical information about eight African American Virginians whose lives were dedicated to Emancipation and freedom — five individuals from the period before Emancipation through 1865, and five who continued to work for freedom from 1866 to 1970.
Virginians to Appear on the Monument
To represent the time period before emancipation in 1865, the Commission selected the following individuals:
- Mary Elizabeth Bowser, a spy for the Union in the Confederate White House;
- William Harvey Carney, a former slave who fought in the 54th Massachusetts Voluntary Infantry Regiment and for his actions at Fort Wagner was the first African American awarded the Medal of Honor;
- Gabriel, who led one of the half-dozen most important insurrection plots in the history of North American slavery;
- Dred Scott, an enslaved man whose unsuccessful lawsuit for his freedom led to the infamous Supreme Court decision that persons of African descent were not United States citizens; and
- Nat Turner, leader of the only successful slave revolt in Virginia’s history, shattering the myth of the contented slave.
To represent the time period from 1865 to 1970, the Commission selected the following individuals:
- Rosa Dixon Bowser, an educator, women’s rights activist, and social reformer who founded the first African American teachers association and co-founded the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs and the National Association of Colored Women;
- John Mercer Langston, Virginia’s first African American member of Congress and the first president of what is now Virginia State University;
- John Mitchell, Jr., a community activist, the first African American to run for Governor of Virginia, and editor of the Richmond Planet newspaper, which covered local, national, and worldwide news, especially lynchings, segregation, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan;
- Lucy Simms, a prominent educator who taught three generations of African American children in the Harrisonburg area; and
- Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, a Petersburg minister, civil rights activist, chief of staff to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
For more information about the monument and the individuals to be represented on it, please visit the http://mlkcommission.dls.virginia.gov website.
Donations may be made online here.