After a Public Outcry, a Central Park Statue of Two White Suffragettes Has Been Redesigned to Include Sojourner Truth

After facing early criticism, plans for Central Park’s
first-ever statue dedicated to historical women are being
amended.

In July 2018, sculptor Meredith Bergmann and the non-profit
organization Monumental Women Statue Fund successfully put forth a design for a statue of American
suffragettes Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. But not
everyone was pleased with the result.

The statue drew criticism from those who felt it
suggested that the architects of the suffrage movement were solely
white, when in fact African American women such as Ida B. Wells,
Sojourner Truth, and Mary Church-Terrell also fought for
women’s right to vote.

Yesterday, the group announced that it had amended the design to
include Sojourner Truth standing alongside Stanton and Anthony. The
original design proposal also included text listing the names of 22
women who participated in the movement, including seven African
Americans, but when the Public Design Committee voted to exclude
that element, “we knew we needed to go back to the drawing
board to create a new design,” said the Monumental Women Statue
Fund’s president, Pam Elam, in a statement. “Our goal has
always been to honor the diverse women in history who fought for
equality and justice,” she said, adding that “it is fitting that
Anthony, Stanton, and Truth stand together in this statue as they
often did in life.”

There are currently only five statues in New York City dedicated
to real women (Alice in Wonderland has a spot, though, as does
Mother Goose), a figure that pales in comparison to the 145 statues
of historical men (and Central Park alone features 23 of them).

Among the original statue’s most vocal critics was women’s
rights pioneer Gloria Steinem, who told the New York
Times that the design was “not enough,” and that the proposal
made it look like Anthony and Stanton “are standing on the names of
these other women.” She added: “I do think we cannot have a statue
of two white women representing the vote for all women.”

In this case, the organizers agreed. The newly designed statue
is set to be unveiled in Central Park on August 26, 2020, to
coincide with the bicentennial of Susan B. Anthony’s birth.

The post After a Public Outcry, a Central Park Statue of Two
White Suffragettes Has Been Redesigned to Include Sojourner
Truth appeared first on artnet News.