Historical Reenactor Refutes Mob: Emancipation Monument Figure ‘Is Rising, Looking Forward’

The figure of Archer Alexander was not that of a slave in submission but a man on the move, a historical reenactor said Friday while standing near the Emancipation Monument in Washington, DC.

“Well, if you look at the figure, it’s easy to say, ‘Well, he’s on his knees.’ But if you look closer, you will see this man is rising,” reenactor Marcia E. Cole told Breitbart News.

She continued:

His chains are broken, his back is not bent. He’s on one knee in the rising position. His head is… his chin is up, his eyes are looking forward. He’s looking forward to a future of freedom. So you can say, ‘Oh, he’s on his knees,’ but he’s not on both knees. He is rising. His head’s not bloodied and bowed. He’s looking up. He’s a fine figure of a man, an unscored back. So he’s going for it.

Cole, who worked for the African American Civil War Memorial Museum, said she joined other reenactors at the monument to educate people who wanted it torn down about its history.

“So once learning about this statue in this park, and having come to see it, seeing Charlotte Scott’s name, when the opportunity came, I chose her as the person to represent,” Cole said.

“And for me, her story signifies the power of one, what five dollars and a dream can do. So had she not suggested this statue when she heard of Lincoln’s assassination it would not be there,” she commented.

Following Lincoln’s death, Scott used the first five dollars she earned as a free woman to start a fundraising campaign for the monument among freed blacks as a way to pay homage to the president, according to the National Park Service’s (NPS) website.

The NPS site noted:

The campaign for the Freedmen’s Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln, as it was to be known, was not the only effort of the time to build a monument to Lincoln; however, as the only one soliciting contributions exclusively from those who had most directly benefited from Lincoln’s act of emancipation it had a special appeal.

When asked why she did not think the monument should come down or be replaced, Cole said, “I’m pretty sure it might wind up in the basement of some museum, and I don’t think that’s right on behalf of Miss Charlotte.”

“You can bring field trips of children out there, stops on the tours, documentaries, brochures, that outline what this is all about and how to reinterpret that figure. He’s not a slave in submission. He’s a man on the move,” she concluded.