[THEFEDERALIST] Blazing sun and high humidity met hundreds of protesters, counter-protesters, neighborhood residents, coppers, and news hounds Friday evening at Capitol Hill’s Lincoln Park. The protest, planned Tuesday, hoped to tear the monument of Abraham Lincoln with one hand on the Emancipation Proclamation freeing a slave, modeled by freedman Archer Alexander. It was paid for by local black residents and black Union veterans and dedicated by Frederick Douglass.
After a Tuesday rally promised to return to tear the statue down on Thursday, Park Police surrounded the monument with fencing re-enforced by Jersey barriers and stood guard night and day. Tension in the usually busy community park had been building since then, broken by short moments of music and happy protest. |