DC Congresswoman introduces bill to remove 'Emancipation Memorial' featuring Lincoln

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., has reintroduced legislation to remove a statue commemorating emancipation, arguing that 19th-century memorial doesn't do enough to honor slaves' contribution to their own freedom.

"Although formerly enslaved Americans paid for this statue, the design and sculpting process was done without their input or participation in any way, and it shows," Holmes Norton said in a press release last week. "The statue fails to note how enslaved African Americans pressed for their own emancipation. Understandably, they were only recently liberated from slavery and were grateful for any recognition of their freedom. However, in his keynote address at the unveiling of the statue, Frederick Douglass pointedly did not praise the statue, and, indeed, in private remarks, went as far as to say, 'it showed the negro on his knee when a more manly attitude would have been indicative of freedom.'"