A new "piece" of history is now part of National Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol.
Civil Rights icon, educator, author, philanthropist, humanitarian and women's rights activist Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune will be honored Wednesday morning when a statue of her likeness will be unveiled at Statuary Hall. Her statue will represent her home state of Florida. The unveiling takes place at 11:00 am. It will also make Dr. Bethune the first Black American in the National Statuary Hall collection. After an arduous five-year process that involved a series of state and federal approvals, a fundraising effort that generated nearly $1 million, logistical challenges and unimagined complications that included a global pandemic, the towering marble statue honoring Mary McLeod Bethune will be unveiled this morning (Wednesday, July 13, 2022) in Washington, D.C. The sculpture that was artfully chiseled out of a 13-foot-long block of precious marble will be dedicated in the U.S. Capitol Building’s National Statuary Hall. Bethune was a civil rights activist, a presidential adviser and the founder of the Daytona Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls, which became Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will host an unveiling ceremony Wednesday morning, with many other lawmakers expected to attend. Since 1864, each state has been able to send two statues of distinguished citizens to represent it in the U.S. Capitol, constituting the National Statuary Hall collection. Since 2000, states have been able to remove and replace existing statues with new ones. A handful of states have done so, but none of those new additions have depicted Black Americans. The artist who created the work, master sculptor Nilda Comas, painstakingly carved the likeness of Bethune from an 11.5-ton block of precious 'statuario' marble excavated from Michelangelo’s cave in the Apuan Italian Alps in Tuscany. The black marble used for the rose on the statue came from Spain. The statue of Dr. Bethune marks the first time in U.S. history that an African American will represent a state in the Hall at the U.S. Capitol. The statue of Bethune replaces one of Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith. The change was directed by a state law signed by then-Gov. Rick Scott (R) in 2018. The Smith statue was removed in 2021. Dr. Bethune will join women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth, whose memorial bust was unveiled in 2009 in the Emancipation Hall in the U.S. Capitol Visitor’s Center, as the first African American women to be honored with busts in the United States Capitol. Born to former slaves a decade after the Civil War, Dr. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) in 1935. She was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as his National Advisor, with whom she worked to create the Federal Council on Colored Affairs aka the Black Cabinet. Dr. Bethune also founded a private school for Black girls in Daytona Beach, Florida, which today is the prominent HBCU, Bethune-Cookman University. Dr. Bethune is known as "The First Lady of the Struggle" because of her commitment to Civil Rights. This is one of the most important weeks in our state’s history and in the history of our country,” said Nancy Lohman, president of the Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Statuary Fund, among a contingent of local civic leaders and elected officials who will be attending the ceremony. “Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune’s statue unveiling and dedication is historic as the first African American — male or female — to be honored in the National Statuary Hall State Collection,” Lohman said. “I am so proud that the great State of Florida is becoming greater on July 13, 2022.”
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![]() I was insulted as a young Black child every day during my formative years. Everywhere I went, I saw signs which tried to reinforce that as a person with a Black face, I was “less than.” My introduction to Mr. Rutledge Pearson at age eleven and joining the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP helped me understand my Blackness and taught me the fight against Racism and human dignity and Respect, even at my so-called “precocious age,” was more than necessary. On this so-called Independence Day commemorating this country’s independence, the fight against Racism and for Black human dignity and Respect is even more critical for me as a Black man. You do not fight Racism expecting its riddance immediately or shortly. Racism is too embedded and too embraced by White America to expect its dissolution overnight. The same goes for White privilege. And as we can see, Racism and White privilege today are as evil, vulgar, and insidious as ever. So, you hope one day, those who come after you will not have to fight just like our parents, grandparents, and many Black pioneers fought for us, and some of us continue to fight. If you do not understand your Black skin hue, I ask, “If not now, when?” Racism has not diminished in this country, not one iota. Yet, many of us think and act as if there is no need to continue to fight. Although our ancestors, our freedom fighters, thought that our era would have won the fight, we find today the fight is still a fight. James Weldon Johnson captured the essence of the struggle very well when he penned in the immortal “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” “Let us march on, ‘til victory is won.” You might think it sounds corny, but James Weldon Johnson accurately stated the case if you understand your struggle. Racism is as disrespectful and insulting today as it was for an eleven-year-old boy trying to understand. Mr. Pearson used to say to us, his students and Youth Council NAACP members, “If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem.” The signs are gone, but Racism is not. On this Independence Day not intended for our Black ancestors when initially celebrated, Which are you? The Problem or the Solution?” The Struggle Continues! THERE HAVE BEEN 118 SUPREME COURT JUSTICES IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICA. Of the 118, 110 have been White males---5 have been White females-Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Amy Coney Barrett, 1 Black female, Ketanji Brown Jackson,1 Black male, Thurgood Marshall---and 1 "OTHER."
Black man gets stopped, runs, and 60 police bullets penetrate his body.
White man kills 6, wounds 24, and he is "taken into custody." IF YOU ARE BLACK, running from the police, even if you had not committed a crime, IS punishable by police death.
IF YOU ARE WHITE, running from the police, even after murdering 6 people and wounding 24, IS NOT punishable by police death. Way to "illustrate" the reality of a Black body of Jayland Walker, riddled with 60 bullet holes by artist Christopher Clark. Chris's initial caption, "This is what 60 shots look like."
The realism of the here and now, another police murder of a Black person, and White Christian American Racism. AmeriKKKa Today. |
AuthorRodney. L. Hurst, Sr. Archives
June 2024
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