Emancipation Statue Of Abraham Lincoln, Freed Slave Removed From Downtown Boston

A statue of Abraham Lincoln with a freed slave  has been removed from  downtown Boston

Workers removed the Emancipation Memorial early Tuesday from a park  where it had stood since 1879.

City officials had agreed in late June to take down the memorial after complaints about the design. Mayor Marty Walsh acknowledged at the time that the statue made residents and visitors alike “uncomfortable.”

It was created to celebrate the freeing of slaves in America and was based on Archer Alexander, a Black man who escaped slavery, helped the Union Army and was the last man recaptured under the Fugitive Slave Act.

But while some saw the shirtless man rising to his feet while shaking off the broken shackles on his wrists, others perceived him as kneeling before Lincoln, his White emancipator.

inscription on both reads: “A race set free and the country at peace. Lincoln rests from his labors.”