Freedom seeker, Archer Alexander is rising!!

Freedom seeker, Archer Alexander is rising!!

Started
July 1, 2020
Petition to
2136 Rayburn HOB Washington, DC 20515 phone: 202-225-8050 fax: 202-225-3002 hours: M-F; 9:00am-6:00p Eleanor Holmes Norton
Signatures: 1,629Next Goal: 2,500
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Why this petition matters

The Emancipation Memorial was the dream of Charlotte Scott, an enslaved woman who gave the first $5 earned in freedom for a memorial to President Abraham Lincoln when he was assassinated in 1865. The Western Sanitary Commission held the funds in trust. The Commission had been of tremendous service during the Civil War, assisting the U.S. Colored Troops, who gave the majority of the funds for this memorial. When difficulties arose, it would be William G. Eliot, who had emancipated Archer Alexander, to see that the project was carried forth. With Alexander portraying the enslaved man, seen rising after having broken his own chains, the memorial was placed in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1876, at the end of Reconstruction. The Memorial was dedicated by a Committee of African Americans who had seen the memorial and helped raise the funds for this monument, with an audience of over 25,000 people.

The Freedom Monument, also known as The Emancipation Memorial, was totally funded by the formerly enslaved, and freedmen of this nation, and served as the primary national memorial to Lincoln until 1922, when the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in West Potomac Park. For more about the monument and Archer Alexander see https://archeralexander.blog/ 

If you know his story...then you know he is rising! Archer Alexander, a freedom seeker enslaved in St. Charles, Missouri, was first captured in February 1863 when sixteen men made their attempt for freedom at Howell’s Ferry on the Missouri River. Running for his life, as he had overheard his enslaver Richard H. Pitman, and other area men, plotting to destroy a vital railroad bridge nearby and had informed the Union Troops. Escaping, he made his way to St. Louis and the home of an abolitionist named William Greenleaf Eliot, a member of the Western Sanitary Commission, where his enslaver attempted to recapture him. As Missouri was under Marshall law, following a military investigation he was granted freedom, by September 24, 1863, through the provisions of Lincoln’s Second Confiscation Act. He is the great-great-great grandfather of Muhammad Ali. 

 

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Signatures: 1,629Next Goal: 2,500
Support now
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Decision Makers

  • Eleanor Holmes Norton2136 Rayburn HOB Washington, DC 20515 phone: 202-225-8050 fax: 202-225-3002 hours: M-F; 9:00am-6:00p