On Saturday, as an estimated 1 million people took part in the Women’s March in cities all over the country, someone defiled a statue of Harriet Tubman in Harlem by putting a pink pussy hat on top of the legend’s head.
The 13-foot-tall bronze statue designed by Alison Saar in 2008 is located in Central Harlem on Frederick Douglass Boulevard and West 123rd Street. The iconic liberator of enslaved people is depicted facing South with a bag slung over her shoulder and roots coming out of her full-length dress anchoring her to the North. The lower part of her dress features the faces of the enslaved people she helped escape to freedom.
It is a stoic and dignified memorial befitting Harriet Tubman (even if a little watered down by the fact that the fearless liberator is depicted without her shotgun).
The placement of a silly pop culture symbol of non-inclusive white feminism on top of Tubman’s head is insulting. The person who perpetrated this stunt probably thought it was a “stick it to the man” gesture of solidarity with a historical freedom fighter and modern day feminism. That person is wrong.
Photo credit: By Lea Roberts.
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