Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of
your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I
lift my lamp beside the golden door."
DID YOU KNOW THAT -
The Statue of Liberty
was originally a Black woman, but, as memory serves, it was because the model
was Black. The original statue which is in France, is that of a "Black
Woman"..
In a book called "The Journey of The Songhai People",
according to Dr.Jim Haskins, a member of the National Education Advisory
Committee of the Liberty-Ellis Island Committee, professor of English at the
University of Florida, and prolific Black author, points out that what
stimulated the original idea for that 151 foot statue in the harbor. He says
that what stimulated the idea for the creation of the statue initially was the
part that Black soldiers played in the ending of Black African Bondage in the
United States.
It was created in the mind of the French historian Edourd
de Laboulaye, chairman of the French Anti-Slavery Society, who, together with
sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, proposed to the French government that the
people of France present to the people of the United States through the American
Abolitionist Society, the gift of a Statue of Liberty in recognition of the fact
that Black soldiers won the Civil War in the United States. It was widely known
then that it was Black soldiers who played the pivotal role in winning the war,
and this gift would be a tribute to their prowess. Suzanne Nakasian, director of
the Staue of Liberty, Ellis Island Foundations' National Ethnic Campaign said
that the Black Americans' direct connection to Lady Liberty is unknown to the
majority of Americans, BLACK or WHITE. When the statue was presented to the U.S.
Minister to France in 1884, it is said that he remonstrated that the dominant
view of the broken shackles would be offensive to a U.S. South, because since
the statue was a reminder of Blacks winning their freedom. It was a reminder to
a beaten South of the ones who caused their defeat, their despised former
captives.
.art)
Documents of
Proof:
1) You may visit Click~~>http://www.mcny.org/Research/libstud.htm There, people can see an image of the terracotta model and find links to other sites.
2) Check with the N.Y Times magazine, part II_May 18,
1986. Read the article by Laboulaye.
3) The dark original face of the
Statue of Liberty can be seen in the N.Y Post, June 17, 1986, also the Post
stated the reason for the broken chains at her feet.
4) Finally, you may
check with the French Mission or the French Embassy at the UN or in Washington,
DC and ask for some original French material on the Statue of Liberty, including
the Bartholdi original model. You can call in September (202) 944-6060 or
6400.
Click~~>Is there a Black Statue of Liberty in Paris?
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