The Statue That Was Supposed to Honor Abolition: How We Erased the Truth to Protect a Myth

We are told the Statue of Liberty represents freedom.
A gift from France. A beacon to immigrants. A symbol of welcome.

But that’s not the whole story.
Not even close.

What if I told you the original idea behind the Statue of Liberty was to celebrate the abolition of slavery — not immigration?
And what if I told you that truth was quietly erased to protect America’s self-image?

What do we choose to commemorate and what we choose to forget?

In the early 1860s, French abolitionist Édouard de Laboulaye envisioned a monument to honor the U.S. Civil War’s end — and the legal abolition of slavery.
He believed America had set a global example by ending human bondage. His idea? A colossal statue symbolizing liberty emerging from the chains of enslavement.

The earliest models of Lady Liberty included broken shackles at her feet. Some designs even showed her holding the broken chain aloft.

This was not a neutral figure.
It was a Black liberation monument — meant to honor emancipation and the long fight for abolition.

But by the time the statue was unveiled in 1886, those symbols were diminished. The broken chains? Still there, but tucked under her robe — barely visible, hard to see unless you know to look.

The message had shifted.
From Black freedom to white freedom of movement.
From abolition to assimilation.

By the 20th century, the story had been rewritten almost completely.

The Statue of Liberty became a myth of Ellis Island and “give me your tired, your poor.” It was easier to tie her to immigration than to the racial wounds America had never healed.

This wasn’t accidental.

In the Reconstruction era and after, the U.S. doubled down on white supremacy through Jim Crow laws, anti-Black violence, and Indian boarding schools.
A statue celebrating the abolition of slavery would have been too radical. Too honest.

So the story changed.
And the statue stood — bearing witness to a freedom she was no longer allowed to name.

At SISU, we ask:

✅ Who gets to define freedom?
✅ What stories do we honor in public space — and which ones do we bury?
✅ Can we plan for justice if we can’t remember injustice clearly?

The Statue of Liberty is a case study in cultural erasure through aesthetics. It teaches us how even the most iconic symbols can be sanitized — if they threaten the dominant narrative.

And it challenges us, as planners and cultural workers, to ask:
What stories are we building on?
Whose liberation are we commemorating?
And who’s still waiting for their freedom to be seen?

Repair Is a Planning Practice

We don’t need to tear the statue down.
But we do need to tell the truth about her origins.

We need monuments, memorials, and planning processes that don’t just celebrate freedom in theory — but name the specific struggles that made it possible.

We need to fund public memory like we fund public infrastructure.
Because forgetting is not neutral. It’s a strategy. And we have a responsibility to disrupt it.

Let’s teach that the Statue of Liberty was meant to honor those who were shackled — and those who broke the shackles. Those who resisted

Let’s remember that liberty, memory like land, must be reclaimed.

📩 Want to bring public memory, abolitionist values, or historical repair into your planning work?
Let’s build with truth at the center.