5 The creation of republican hegemony took decades, however, involving a series of tumultuous political struggles throughout the nineteenth century. By the beginning of the twentieth century, republican ideology dominated French political culture, and it continues to do so to this day. Emerging out of the cauldron of the French Revolution, republicanism espoused a new vision of France, and indeed of all humanity, centered around individual liberty and political democracy. 4 In particular, the ideal of freedom has taken the political form of republicanism, emphasizing popular sovereignty and the rejection of aristocratic rule. The idea of France as a land of freedom has been central to modern French identity, summarized by the famous slogan of the French Revolution, “ liberté, égalité, fraternité,” in which liberty takes pride of place. 3Ĭonceived by French scholar and activist Édouard de Laboulaye and wrought by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the Statue of Liberty not only represents the admiration of the people of France for America but equally illustrates the changing nature of liberty, including its racial dimensions, in French history. It is thus the perfect symbol of white freedom. The Statue of Liberty embodies both racial difference and an unparalleled representation of human liberation. to claim white status underscores its racial character, as does its complicated but largely exclusionary or at best irrelevant relationship to African Americans and other peoples of color. Moreover, the symbolic role played by the monument in allowing European immigrants to the U.S. The Statue of Liberty symbolizes this perfectly: Lady Liberty’s European physical features, most obviously, but also the lack (indeed, as we shall see, the suppression) of any markers identifying the sculpture with rebel or freed slaves, give it a strong sense of racial identity. Moreover, freedom has been closely entangled with ideas of whiteness and white racial identity in modern history, so that to be free has often meant to be white, and vice versa. Race and racism are not just central aspects of Western society they have shaped and permeated the very idea of freedom as we understand it. There is a facet of the statue’s history, however, that has yet to be explored in depth: its role as a symbol of whiteness, and more particularly of the whiteness of freedom. Endlessly reproduced as a tourist object, a commercial symbol, and a political icon, the Statue of Liberty is one of the great monuments of the modern world. Originally a gift from France to the United States, it also represents the historical ties between the two great republics and the significance of liberty as a global phenomenon. Towering majestically over the entrance to New York Harbor since 1886, the great statue has become, more than any other physical site, the symbol of both human freedom and American national identity. Of all the memorials to freedom throughout the world, none is more important or more widely known than the Statue of Liberty. No evidence can be found to verify this legend, but its mere existence underscores the racialized nature of America’s most famous monument. Some have even argued that the original black statue still exists, either in France or hidden somewhere in the catacombs of New York. Furthermore, the rumor goes, the current white statue was substituted for the original when American politicians objected to the portrayal of Liberty as a black woman. The statue carried broken chains to symbolize emancipation. In addition, the point of the statue was not to honor immigrants but rather to commemorate the abolition of slavery in America, in particular the service of black Union soldiers in the Civil War. The true original was modeled after a black woman and had African features. White Freedom and the Lady of LibertyĪccording to a persistent rumor among African Americans, the sculpture that rises grandly from Liberty Island in New York Harbor is not the original Statue of Liberty. You can also watch a video of the address. This presidential address was delivered at the 132nd annual meeting of the American Historical Association, held in Washington, DC, on January 5, 2018.
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