Talk:Emancipation Memorial

A fact from Emancipation Memorial appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 17 March 2008, and was viewed approximately 4,500 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Emancipation Memorial (pictured), a monument in Washington, DC depicting Abraham Lincoln in his role of the "Great Emancipator", was paid for by former slaves?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/March.

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Another correction- not shackled

"clenched, shirtless and shackled at the president's feet." The chains are broken and his wrists are freed, as the former slave begins to rise, so he is clearly no longer shackled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.109.171 (talk) 01:56, 26 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Citations 15, 21 and 22 are incorrect: UPDATED

Content at the link specified makes no mention of Moses Kimball's donation of the statue to Boston, only that he was Ball's employer — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:189:8200:CFF0:9044:A395:43E6:514E (talk) 22:12, 19 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

--The citation order has changed and this comment is no longer accurate. Right now, citations 21 and 22 are incorrect- first as stated above, the latter for containing no reference to Moses Kimball whatsoever. However, what is now citation 15 "Emancipation and the freed in American sculpture ; a study in interpretation", 1916, Murray, Freeman Henry Morris does contain a reference to Moses Kimball donating the statue, made to Freeman by Kimball's daughter, on p.30. It does not have any bearing whatsoever on the sentence preceding it that references an historian quoted in the Washington Post, bringing the number of blatant mistakes in the citations to 3 in total.

Marcus Wood additions

A few paragraphs were added with Marcus Wood quotes, or why they are notable. I don't see how they relate to the article, and they certainly don't belong in the lead, which would be far too long with these entries in them. I have deleted them. 0¹⁸ (talk) 15:09, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

New Frederick Douglass Letter

Yesterday @EWLwiki: and I added different discussions of the recently discovered letter by Frederick Douglas on his concerns with the Emancipation Memorial. Their edit was added to the section on the Dedication and Douglass's speech at the dedication; mine to the section on Criticisms of the monument (which already included a second hand version of Douglass's criticism).

Since we should consolidate these two edits, I'll compare their content briefly: Mine chiefly presents an extended quotation from Douglass, without providing the interpretation of its significance, citing as its source an article by the recent discovers of the letter. EWLwiki focuses largely on the rediscovery of the letter as recounted in a Wall Street Journal article, providing specific details on the date of the letter but with less concern for its significance.

I feel the final edit should include the extended quotation, the date of the letter, and citation of both sources. It should also probably add the comments of th e discoverers on the significance of the letter to the current debate over the monument.

Obviously I prefer my approach ;) since I feel the content and significance of Douglass's letter is more important to this article than the context of its rediscovery, but it would be appropriate to have other editors comments before trying to resolve this issue. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:44, 5 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As a step in this direction, I have added a brief discussion of White and Sandage's suggested resolution of the current impasse over the memorial. I have left @EWLwiki:'s contribution intact pending further discussion here. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:54, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say the Douglass letter belongs in the 'Dedication' section more than the 'Criticism' section. But it definitely doesn't belong in them both - quoting the same text twice in a fairly short article makes this article look bad, like it was written by (or for) someone with no attention span. Robofish (talk) 23:41, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a sentence in the paragraph in the "dedication" section that begins in a very non-neutral tone - "This long-forgotten vital American artifact" - then continues in a way that sounds like an advertisement for everyone and every institution involved in the discovery. Perhaps the history of the finding of the letter can be put into, well, perhaps the article should have a new section: 2020 Controversy. And perhaps the paragraph in the dedication section should begin by simply saying "A letter written by Douglass immediately after the dedication was found in June 2020 (brackets: "see section 2020 Controversy<-hyperlink"), which read: (letter). Also, is "written immediately after" accurate, or would "shortly after", or "the day of", be more correct? I have not looked into the background of the letter, as I came here to read, not write, the article ( and just found out the letter even existed), so, is there clear evidence that it was written "immediately" after the dedication? That seems like a good, dramatic word for someone to add upon seeing the date of the letter. Pvtbuddie (talk) 23:37, 25 July 2020 (UTC)Pvtbuddie[reply]