The Capitol Dome

THE CAPITOL DOME 32 Fig. 8. Lincoln the Emancipator, bronze statue group by omas Ball, 1876, Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C. (photograph c. 1918-1920) the dedication was witnessed by President Wilson, a son of the South. e theme of the speakers was mainly the spirit of com- mon sacrifice and a common glorious future. The earlier statue of Lincoln as the Emancipator in Washington was the "Freedman's Monument" (fig. 8) erected in 1876 at Lincoln Park at East Capitol and 11th Street, N.E. Funded by contributions by freed enslaved people, its design came about under the rather unusual auspices of the West- ern Sanitary Commission, founded to provide quality health and social services to Union soldiers in the western the- ater of operations. Its sculptor, Thomas Ball, was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1819. Mainly self-educated, he eventually moved to Florence, Italy where he remained for the rest of his life as a member of the expatriate commu- nity. Frederick Douglass was the lead orator at the dedication, which was attended by President Grant, Members of Congress and the Supreme Court, and a mainly black crowd of 50,000. It was widely considered an appropriate expression of grati- tude despite the emphasis in Douglass's speech on Lincoln as the president of the whites with freed blacks merely his "step-children." Lincoln with the Emancipation Proclamation in his hand stands above the kneeling man with clearly African features breaking free, said to be the likeness of a man called Archer Alexander. Alexander was actually a man who escaped from slavery in Missouri in 1863 and was saved from the effects of the Fugitive Slave Law only by the protection of the anti-slavery Federal Army area commander. In actuality, his freedom was not achieved under the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed only those slaves in states that were "in rebellion," thus excluding Missouri. Although the right hand of the kneeling figure ends with a fist, the relationship between the two figures and the relative passivity of the Negro was part of the reigning iconography. Douglass noted the absence of a standing figure that might have signified equality and "manliness." Yet this monument became known as the Emancipation Monument and was replicated elsewhere. e Lincoln Squaremonument became less prominent in the context of the suppression of black rights that ensued after the end of Reconstruction in 1877. Lincoln Park did become the focal point for celebrations by the local black community of April 16, District of Columbia Emancipation Day. For example, one such celebration in the 1880s had from fifty to sixty thousand come out despite the drizzling rain. In the 1960s the square became the site of civil rights demonstrations. e Lincoln Memorial on the Mall would remain but there was a revision of the context in which it would be viewed. Con- ceived to mark Lincoln as the Savior of the Union and concili- ator of the North and South, the Memorial came to take on a somewhat different meaning starting in 1939. Marian Anderson, the famous contralto singer, had refused to sing before a segregated audience at DAR Constitution Hall and had thus been denied permission to use what was at that time the major concert hall facility in the city. With the cooperation of the L IBR ARY OF CONGRE S S PRIN T S AND PHOTO GR APHS DIVISION

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