Philadelphia picks winning design for Harriet Tubman statue after controversy over original choice

Associated Press News

Alvin Pettit beat out four other semifinalists with a design called “A Higher Power: The Call of a Freedom Fighter.”

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The city of Philadelphia has picked the winning design for a Harriet Tubman statue outside City Hall after facing criticism over its original choice of a white artist who’d been selected without competition.

Alvin Pettit beat out four other semifinalists with a design called “A Higher Power: The Call of a Freedom Fighter.” His nearly 14-foot bronze statue — the first of a Black woman who is a historical figure in the city’s public art collection — will portray Tubman as a military leader and freedom fighter.

The famed abolitionist — who escaped slavery and led other enslaved Black women and men to freedom on the Underground Railroad — worked as a scout, spy and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War, and helped lead 150 Black soldiers on a gunboat raid in South Carolina.

“She is shown in majestic prayer. Perhaps she is calling upon her faith or contemplating a battle,” said Pettit, a Baltimore-bred artist based in Jersey City, New Jersey, at a news conference Monday as a clay model of the forthcoming sculpture was unveiled at City Hall.

“This woman was a soldier, a scout, a union spy, a military strategist, and a war hero,” he said. “Therefore I captured a moment in time that shows her as a conqueror.”

Read more about the original controversial decision at the Associated Press.

African Americans changed the meaning of the Civil War. Visit this gallery to learn how.

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