Philip Reed & The Statue of Freedom.
The Statue of Freedom crowns the top of the US Capitol building in DC, and this statue of “freedom” was cast by an enslaved man, Philip Reed. Reed’s story is one of many that highlight the harsh contradictions between the American mythology of liberty and justice for all and the American reality of brutal abject slavery.
Clark Mills kept Reed enslaved for over twenty years and Reed’s extremely talented labor helped produce statues that still stand in DC today like a statue of enslaver and US President Andrew Jackson on a horse in Lafayette Square, and a statue of enslaver and US President George Washington on a horse in Washington Circle.
The D.C. Emancipation Act abolished slavery in the District of Columbia on April 16, 1862, releasing Philip Reed from fourty two years of enslavement.
The final section of the Statue of Freedom was completed and bolted to the top of the US Capitol building in December 1863, where this bronze personification of liberty could gaze down at her creator, Philip Reed: a newly free man.
A memorial plaque honoring Philip Reed was unveiled on April 16, 2014—the 152nd anniversary of Emancipation in Washington DC. It reads/ “Philip Reed, the slave who built the Statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol died a free man on February 6, 1892 and is buried here at National Harmony Memorial Park.”
