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Did You Know the Freed Slave Kneeling Before Lincoln Was Muhammad Ali’s Great-Great-Great-Grandfather?
Face2Face Africa ^ | Feb 26, 2021 | Mildred Europa Taylor

Posted on 02/26/2021 5:55:34 PM PST by nickcarraway

Archer Alexander’s fame came largely after his death. Depicted in bronze kneeling before President Abraham Lincoln, his story also received renewed attention recently amid recent calls for monuments connected to slavery and colonialism to be pulled down. In the wake of global anti-racism protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd in the U.S., such controversial monuments became the target of Black Lives Matter protesters across the world, including the UK and Belgium.

In the U.S., statues of Confederate leaders and the explorer Christopher Columbus were toppled. In Washington, D.C., protesters made attempts to tear down the controversial Emancipation Memorial, a statue of a freed slave kneeling before President Abraham Lincoln. The bronze memorial in Lincoln Park was erected in 1876 to commemorate the Emancipation Proclamation, the executive order signed by Lincoln that ended slavery in the Confederacy. It was commissioned and paid for by Black people after the Civil War, but now protesters say the position of the formerly enslaved Black man at the feet of Lincoln is offensive and should be removed.

For many, the statue does not in any way show how enslaved African Americans pushed for their own emancipation. As a matter of fact, scores of enslaved African Americans fought for their own freedom. Such was the case of Alexander, the real-life model for the newly freed slave in the controversial Emancipation Memorial, also called the Freedman’s Memorial.


TOPICS: Arts/Photography; History; Sports
KEYWORDS: abrahamlincoln; ali; cassiusclay; emancipation; godsgravesglyphs; greatestpresident; lincoln; muhammadali
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To: cquiggy

Ask an African person about his or her family. You find everybody has 1,000 “sisters” — virtually every woman around the village is a “sister.” Makes genealogy a bit difficult.


21 posted on 02/26/2021 7:33:14 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom (The Weak Never Started, The Cowards fail along the way, Only the Strong Survive)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

“Too bad the Emancipation Proclamation freed no one.”

HA, yeah, that really annoyed me the first time I read it. All the slaves under Lincoln’s jurisdiction, were still slaves. Only the slaves in the states in rebellion were freed (or were to be freed if the South didn’t surrender, is that it?).

But, of course, none of those slave owners or their elected representatives acknowledged Lincoln’s authority, so it was essentially moot.

Is it the most famous legally moot declaration in history? Or are there scores of them?


22 posted on 02/26/2021 7:37:10 PM PST by jocon307 (Dem party delenda est!)
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Bump


23 posted on 02/26/2021 9:04:15 PM PST by foreverfree
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To: nickcarraway
Did You Know the Freed Slave Kneeling Before Lincoln Was Muhammad Ali’s Great-Great-Great-Grandfather?

More importantly: Did Muhammad Ali know?

Regards,

24 posted on 02/26/2021 10:33:36 PM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...

25 posted on 02/27/2021 9:05:19 AM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

“Too bad the Emancipation Proclamation freed no one.”


Well, it did and it didn’t. Lincoln despite being pretty much self educated realized he didn’t have the Constitutional authority to require Americans to wear masks or to free slaves who were the legal property of Americans. But as Commander-in Chief, he could, as a war measure, emancipate slaves held by those in rebellion against the U.S. depriving Confederates of their labor.

So it freed no one on January 1, 1863. But it did free thousands as soon as the Union army occupied Confederate held territory. Prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, some (but not all) Union commanders felt legally compelled to return runaway slaves to their owners, the Fugitive Slave Act was still the law of the land.

As the war and the Union Army progressed, the Emancipation Proclamation did, in fact, free most (but not all) of the slaves in the United States. The 13th Amendment freed the rest, although by the time it was passed, most Union slave states had already abolished slavery.


26 posted on 02/27/2021 10:04:30 AM PST by hanamizu
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To: hanamizu

It did not free slaves in Union held slave states like Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware and Missouri. The proclamation only applied to states in rebellion.


27 posted on 02/27/2021 10:21:03 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (DemocRats would burn the country to the ground to be absolute rulers over the ashes.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants
Too bad the Emancipation Proclamation freed no one.

Um, that's not correct. Tens of thousands of slaves were freed instantly, and the US Army used it to effectively free several million slaves prior to passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. The Emancipation Proclamation had a massive impact on the South's ability to maintain its economy and wage war.

28 posted on 02/27/2021 10:41:05 AM PST by Alter Kaker (Gravitation is a theory, not a fact. It should be approached with an open mind...)
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To: Blood of Tyrants
It did not free slaves in Union held slave states like Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware and Missouri. The proclamation only applied to states in rebellion.

True, but you said the Emancipation Proclamation freed nobody. That's completely wrong. It freed slaves in areas under rebellion, creating an incentive for slaves to escape to areas occupied by the Union army and giving Union armies the legal power and responsibility to free slaves as they captured territory. Which is exactly what happened.

29 posted on 02/27/2021 10:43:21 AM PST by Alter Kaker (Gravitation is a theory, not a fact. It should be approached with an open mind...)
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To: jocon307
But, of course, none of those slave owners or their elected representatives acknowledged Lincoln’s authority, so it was essentially moot.

Nope, because throughout the war Union armies moved through the South, and particularly after the Emancipation Proclamation slaves escaped to them seeking freedom and causing chaos in the Southern economy and wrecking the South's ability to wage war. It was massively successful.

30 posted on 02/27/2021 10:49:20 AM PST by Alter Kaker (Gravitation is a theory, not a fact. It should be approached with an open mind...)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

It did not free slaves in Union held slave states like Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware and Missouri. The proclamation only applied to states in rebellion.


Yes. Lincoln realized that he had no authority over slaves legally held by Americans. The Emancipation Proclamation was careful to exclude slaves in Confederate territory already under Union control, such as most of Louisiana and Tennessee.


31 posted on 02/27/2021 10:54:21 AM PST by hanamizu
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To: nickcarraway

Interesting detail.


32 posted on 02/27/2021 2:30:41 PM PST by TBP (Progressives lack compassion and tolerance. Their self-aggrandizement is all that matters. )
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