Was Statue of Liberty's original theme anti-slavery?

Dayson conducted her own research of the Statue of Liberty and what it symbolizes

February 17, 2000
Web posted at: 11:10 p.m. EST (0410 GMT)

By Correspondent Garrick Utley

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The Statue of Liberty, one of the most revered icons of the United States, is coming under scrutiny about what its creators first meant it to symbolize.

For Diane Dayson, superintendent of the monument that stands in New York Harbor, the question came up about four years ago during Black History Month.

"Over my e-mail came a newspaper article about, 'Did you know that the Statue of Liberty was black? And did you know it had some significant relevance to the African-American community as it related to anti-slavery and the freedom of slaves?' "

VIDEO CNN's Garrick Utley reports on the view that the statue was originally intended as a monument to African Americans' freedom. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

Dayson took those questions to heart and conducted her own research to prove or disprove the theory.

The main argument dates back to 1865, when the idea of a statue as a gift from France was first proposed by Edouard-Rene de Laboulaye, a prominent advocate of democracy in his country. He also was an outspoken abolitionist, opposing slavery in the United States.

At the time the statue was conceived and proposed, President Abraham Lincoln, who was widely acclaimed in France, had recently been assassinated, and American slaves had been emancipated.

According to Howard Dodson of the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, the intent of the statue was clearly tied to the abolitionist movement and the struggle against slavery. But as it evolved from a project idea to an actual construction initiative, it began to drift away from that original idea, he said.

This theory represents a departure from the commonly held idea that the statue was meant to symbolize immigrants, "huddled masses, yearning to breathe free," as the inscription reads on the monument.

"The Statue of Liberty today symbolizes many different things for many different people," said Dayson. "However, anti-slavery was not one of the things that it symbolized."

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