Magdeburg, Germany – Saint Maurice Statue (Magdeburg Cathedral); Lynn, MA – Frederick Douglass Monument (Lynn Common)

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Title

Magdeburg, Germany – Saint Maurice Statue (Magdeburg Cathedral); Lynn, MA – Frederick Douglass Monument (Lynn Common)

Catalog Entry

“Enjoy ye with us, and I thank you, for we be all ready for to die for the faith of Jesu Christ. We have suffered our fellow knights to be slain, and I have suffered your fellows to suffer death for Jesu Christ, and I have kept the commandment of God which said to Peter: ‘Put thy sword into the sheath.’ But now, because that we be enclosed with the bodies of the knights our fellows, and have our clothes red of their blood, let us then follow them by martyrdom. And if it please you, let us send this answer unto Cæsar: We be thy knights, sir emperor, and have taken arms to the defence of the common weal; in us is no treason ne dread, but in no wise we will forsake the law ne faith of Jesu Christ.” – “The Life of Saint Maurice” (c. 1275)

“Harmless, beautiful, proper, and praiseworthy as this demonstration is, I cannot forget that no such demonstration would have been tolerated here twenty years ago. The spirit of slavery and barbarism, which still lingers to blight and destroy in some dark and distant parts of our country, would have made our assembling here the signal and excuse for opening upon us all the flood-gates of wrath and violence. That we are here in peace to-day is a compliment and a credit to American civilization, and a prophecy of still greater national enlightenment and progress in the future. I refer to the past not in malice, for this is no day for malice; but simply to place more distinctly in front the gratifying and glorious change which has come both to our white fellow-citizens and ourselves, and to congratulate all upon the contrast between now and then; the new dispensation of freedom with its thousand blessings to both races, and the old dispensation of slavery with its ten thousand evils to both races—white and black. In view, then, of the past, the present, and the future, with the long and dark history of our bondage behind us, and with liberty, progress, and enlightenment before us, I again congratulate you upon this auspicious day and hour.” – Frederick Douglass, Oration at the Unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument (April 14, 1876) 

"[The Freedmen’s Monument] showed the Negro on his knees when a more manly attitude would have been indicative of freedom." – Frederick Douglass, Comments at the Unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument (April 14, 1876)

Bibliography

Jacobus de Voragine. “The Life of St. Maurice.” The Golden Legend. Ed. F.S. Ellis. Christian Iconography. 2000. https://www.christianiconography.info/goldenLegend/maurice.htm.

Levin, Kevin M. “The Boston Statue that Reinforces the Need for Black History Month.” History News Network. Columbian College of Arts & Sciences. 25 Feb. 2018. https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/168303.

“Oration by Frederick Douglass Delivered on the Occasion of the Unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument, April 14, 1876.” Smithsonian. Digital Volunteers: Transcription Center. https://transcription.si.edu/project/12955.

Photographer(s)

Kisha G. Tracy

Citation

“Magdeburg, Germany – Saint Maurice Statue (Magdeburg Cathedral); Lynn, MA – Frederick Douglass Monument (Lynn Common),” Cultural Heritage through Image, accessed March 28, 2024, https://culturalheritagethroughimage.omeka.net/items/show/75.

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