There is a great post on Vox by Campaign Zero’s Samuel Sinyangwe called “I'm a black Southerner. I had to go abroad to see a statue celebrating black liberation.”
Heading into town from the airport, we circled a statue situated in one of the most prominent intersections in town. It depicts a black man, Bussa, breaking the chains that bound his hands in slavery. In 1816, Bussa, an enslaved African, organized enslaved black people across every major plantation to stage a nationwide revolt in what is now known as Bussa’s Rebellion. His actions were instrumental in bringing about the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies.
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That night, I tweeted an image of the statue. People began tweeting back pictures of others just like it. Statues in Brazil, Guyana, Suriname, Colombia, Jamaica, Saint Martin, Haiti, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Curaçao — all of black men and women who organized, fought, and risked their lives for emancipation. Free. Fearless. Empowering by design.
These statues represented a reality I did not experience growing up. The monuments in my hometown celebrated the men who fought to keep those who look like me enslaved, not those who fought for freedom. A monument in downtown Orlando where I grew up depicted a Confederate soldier, rifle over his shoulder and towering above his surroundings. At its base was a plaque celebrating the “heroic courage” and “unselfish patriotism” of their cause. A few miles down the road, children spent their days learning in the classrooms of Robert E. Lee Middle School.
Go read the whole thing. It is a powerful wake up call to Americans. It isn’t enough for us to take down the monuments to the Confederacy, we need to replace them with proud images of black liberation.