A statue of former President Abraham Lincoln and a freed slave was removed from Boston this week.
Workers took down the statue from Park Square early Tuesday.
The statue was a replica of the one that sits in Washington. It was erected to commemorate Lincoln and his role in freeing slaves through the Emancipation Proclamation.
Ekua Holmes, vice-chair of the Boston Art Commission, said in a statement at the time that community members testified during a meeting that “it hurts to look at this piece.”
“After engaging in a public process, it’s clear that residents and visitors to Boston have been uncomfortable with this statue, and its reductive representation of the black man’s role in the abolitionist movement,” added Mayor Marty Walsh, a Democrat.
The statue showed Lincoln with a depiction of Archer Alexander, a slave who escaped and fought with the Union Army. The statue was donated by Moses Kimball, an official who founded the Boston Museum, according to Walsh’s office. The statue was completed with donations from former slaves and placed in the park in 1879.
Earlier this month, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture and the Boston Art Commission said in a statement that the statue “should be relocated to a new publicly accessible location where its history and context can be better explained.”
Until a new location can be determined, the statue will be stored in a facility in south Boston.
