UPPER BAYLIBERTY ISLAND
We may think of Liberty Island as a beacon to
all immigrants, but it wasn’t designed
as one. Its famous statue was proposed by
Edouard-René Lefèbvre de Laboulaye, a
Frenchman, to celebrate the abolition of slavery
in the U.S., though by the time the dedication
came, in 1886, Northern troops had pulled out
of the South, abandoning the black population to
fend for itself against violent whites. “Shove
the Bartholdi statue, torch and all, into the ocean
until the ‘liberty’ of this country is such as
to make it possible for an industrious and
inoffensive colored man in the South
to earn a respectable living for himself
and family,” wrote the Cleveland ‘Gazette,’
an African-American paper.