ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass has been ripped from its base in Rochester on the anniversary of one of his most famous speeches.
Police say the statue of Douglass was taken from Maplewood Park and placed near the Genesee River gorge on Sunday.
On July 5, 1852, Douglass gave the speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” in Rochester.
To a slave, Douglass said, Independence Day is “a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”
There was no indication the vandalism was timed to the anniversary. The park was a site on the Underground Railroad where Douglass and Harriet Tubman helped shuttle slaves to freedom.
