Black Statue of Liberty - Snoops got it wrong!

The Statue Of Liberty

Standing during the explosive fires of 9/11/01

“I sit here deeply concerned that I suspect

we’re leading our nation on an integration trip
that has us integrating into a burning house.”

Some of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Last words to
The Great Activist, Humanitarian and Artist Harry Belafonte

On Sept. 22, 2005 Harry Belafonte said at theCongressional Black Caucus national town hall meeting:

“I don’t think we quite understood

how prophetic that remark was.”

BLACK PEOPLE AND THEIR PLACE IN WORLD HISTORY
by Dr. Leroy Vaughn, MD, MBA, Historian

Despite an article published on Snoops that says it is false that the Statue of Liberty was created based on the African American struggle for liberation, Dr. Vaughn once again sets the record straight.  

THE BLACK STATUE OF LIBERTY

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte stated that history was only "a lie agreed upon.' Nothing could be more illustrative than the history of the Statue of Liberty originally called "Liberty Enlightening the World." The liberation of African American slaves was the only inspiration for the creation of a Statue of Liberation for Edouard Rene LeFebvre DeLaboulaye. He recruited a young sculptor, Frederick Auguste Bartholdi, to create a Black female slave statue holding a broken chain in her left hand and with broken chains of slavery at her feet.

The official web site of the Statue of Liberty states that the statue was given to the people of the United States by the people of France as an expression of friendship and to commemorate the centennial of American Independence (1776). The Encyclopedia Britannica states Bartholdi designed the Statue of Liberty as a monument to the Franco-American alliance of 1778. These are absolute and total lies! Edouard Rene LeFebvre DeLaboulaye, an internationally renowned lawyer and author of a three-volume history of the United States, first discussed the idea of a symbol to represent the end of U.S. slavery at a dinner party in 1865, at his country home near Versailles, France. In attendance at the dinner party were many abolitionists including Victor Hugo and Frederick Auguste Bartholdi, who had initially been retained to create a sculptured bust of Mr. DeLaboulaye.

Victor Hugo and Edouard DeLaboulaye were leaders of the French abolitionist movement. They hated slavery and were in strong support of John Brown when he attempted to arm slaves in West Virginia for rebellion by raiding the armory at Harpers Ferry in 1859. After John Brown failed and was hanged, Hugo and DeLaboulaye took up a collection among the French people and presented a gold metal to John Brown’s widow.

After Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States in 1861, the French liberals and abolitionists including Hugo, Bartholdi, and DeLaboulaye urged Lincoln to free the slaves even if civil war resulted. Lincoln was told: "You would become the first country in history to have fought a war against itself to free the internal slave and you would go down in history as a truly great country and a beacon of light to all freedom loving people." The French abolitionists saw the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 as a worthless piece of paper since it only freed slaves in the Confederate controlled states where Lincoln had no jurisdiction and not in Union controlled states where Lincoln was still in authority. When the war ended in 1865, French abolitionists were extremely happy and in addition to again urging Lincoln to free all slaves, DeLaboulaye and Bartholdi requested permission to build and dedicate a monument or colossal statuary to that freeing of all slaves in America. When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, DeLaboulaye again headed the abolitionists’ committee that presented a gold metal to Mrs. Lincoln, just as he had done for the widow of John Brown.

In addition to a staunch abolitionist, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904) was an outstanding French sculptor. Bartholdi trained to be an architect in Alsace and Paris and then studied painting with Ary Scheffer and sculpture with J. F. Sioux. Bartholdi’s life and ideas changed dramatically after 1855 when he toured Egypt and witnessed the magnificent colossal monuments and statues created by the ancient Black Egyptians. Bartholdi’s creation of a giant Black ex-slave female with broken chains at her feet and left hand was readily accepted in France. Although liberals, freemasons, and businessmen with American interests were the most enthusiastic supporters of the project, by 1881 some 100,000 people and 181 towns throughout France had contributed money.

In 1871, Frederic Bartholdi at the urging of DeLaboulaye undertook a voyage to America to sell his idea of a colossal statue clearly symbolizing the end of chattel slavery in the United States. He was armed with a large terracotta statue and numerous drawings to clearly illustrate his proposed Statue of Liberty. The original African face of the Statue of Liberty was published in The New York Post dated June 17, 1986 as part of the centennial celebration. Bartholdi found little American support for his African slave model. In 1878, as the African head of Miss. Liberty first went on display at the Universal Exposition in Paris, France, rampant reaction raged throughout the American South.

Bartholdi finally had to abandon his original ideas and changed the Statue of Liberty to the features we are now familiar with. The African face was re-sculptured into the face of his mother Madame Bartholdi. A tablet of law tucked into her folded arm that bears the date July 4, 1776, replaced the broken chains in the slave’s left hand. Ironically, the chains were left at the feet but the meaning changed from broken American slavery to broken English tyranny.

On May 18, 1986 during the centennial celebration, The New York Times joined The New York Post in describing the original Statue of Liberty and the intention of DeLaboulaye and Bartholdi in presenting this statue to America. It’s unconscionable that the Encyclopedia Britannica and the official Statue of Liberty literature can still lie and say that this is a monument celebrating American Independence of 1776 and/or the Franco-American alliance of 1778. Dr. Jack Felder sums it up clearly: "Once in place, Miss. Liberty received a new meaning. She was hailed as the 'Mother of White Exiles,' greeting European immigrants seeking freedom in America.Nothing in the original conceptions of Bartholdi or DeLaboulaye envisioned this role for their stature." End chapter.

Snoops said that the book The Journey of the Songhai People was written by Dr. Jim Haskins then has Haskins saying he did not write the book. Dr. Vaughn's bibliography reveals that the book, available on amazon is:

Robinson, C. Battle, R. (1987) The Journey of the Songhai People. Philadelphia: Farmer Press

BLACK STATUE OF LIBERTY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bohlen, C. “Does She Say the Same Things in her Native Tongue?” New York Times, May 18, 1986

Felder, J. (1992) From the Statue of Liberty to the Statue of Bigotry. New York: Jack Felder.

Felder, J. “Black Origins and Lady Liberty.” Daily Challenge. July 16, 1990

Felder, J. “This Miss. Liberty Was Modeled on Racism.” Black American, July 3, 1986.

Robinson, C. Battle, R. (1987) The Journey of the Songhai People. Philadelphia: Farmer Press

Sinclair, T. Was Original Statue a Tribute to Blacks? New York Voice, July 5, 1986