There's a new campaign to take down the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, DC. In an op-ed in today's Washington Post, Yale history professor David Blight says the statue of a standing Lincoln and a kneeling African American man is "a racist image." And yet, he writes, "Do not tear down this monument."

He proposes a third way -- inspired by the speech that the great orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass gave about Abraham Lincoln at the statue's unveiling.

If we could travel back to that historic day, April 14, 1876, we would. Listening to David Blight for the next 18 minutes is the next best thing. If only we could sign up for his class at Yale on the Civil War.

The Frederick Douglass Oration at the Unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial (13 pages)

Link:
https://transcription.si.edu/project/12955