In the book, Felsen reveals the stories behind\u00a0each monument\u00a0that\u00a0has endured throughout the years. Photographs and\u00a0essays\u00a0tell the story of each person honored,\u00a0along with how the statue came to be. For example, Ralph Ellison is honored not only in Harlem’s Ralph Ellison Plaza, but a statue that resides there is also dedicated to Ellison’s novel Invisible Man. After his death, his Beaumont neighbor, Anne Dobson, launched a campaign to get the statue made.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Felsen believes monuments are important. In fact, he starts his book off with an introduction that emphasizes this: “I believe that monuments matter.” They matter most for Black Americans, he writes, because the way they are portrayed in statues, literature, Hollywood and advertising has a loaded and complex past\u2014influencing how others see them and how they see themselves. “Monuments tell us about the values of a city at a point in time, who we choose to honor and what ideas we choose to honor,” Felsen said. “These figures and their stories are important.\u00a0But in\u00a0a moment when we have a federal government that’s trying to sanitize the past, they’re even more important.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Monuments tell us about the values of a city at a point in time\u2014who we choose to honor and what ideas we choose to honor<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In the introduction\u00a0to the guide, Felsen answers the questions that first inspired his research:\u00a0the first appearance of a Black person in a NYC monument came in the Civil War Soldiers’ Monument in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery in 1876\u2014but this was a nameless figure, with no dedication or story.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t until 1945 that Booker T. Washington became the first identifiable Black American honored in a monument. Much later, in 2007, Harriet Tubman became the first Black woman to be honored in a monument by the city. In fact, there are just seven statues of women\u2014of any race\u2014in NYC. This includes the most recent Central Park Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument by Meredith Bergman, honoring\u00a0the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are featured in the piece\u2014which garnered its own controversy due Anthony’s and Stanton’s racist past.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755728116_989_image.webp.webp\")
\nPhotograph: By David Jacobs, “Women’s Rights Pioneers”
<\/p>\n
In\u00a0the\u00a0front\u00a0of\u00a0the book, you can\u00a0view a map of NYC, along with numbered marks indicating where each monument discussed in the book is located. Felsen encourages readers to follow the map and along with his guide, learn more about these monuments and the Black Americans\u00a0the city\u00a0has chosen to honor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For example, in Manhattan, there’s a Martin Luther King Jr. memorial at Esplanade Gardens in Harlem\u00a0and visit a\u00a0tribute to Althea Gibson at Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens. In The Bronx, a monument to George Washington Carver\u00a0is on view at Bronx Community College, and\u00a0there’s a monument to Jackie Robinson in front of the Brooklyn Cyclones Station. Go find them\u2014and all of the memorials to Black Americans\u2014with help from Felsen’s book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2020, during the midst of COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter, the murder of George Floyd and\u00a0a surge…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":162183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,1037,29645,93845,10784,10782,18625,10785,10783,405,403,29646,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-162182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-art","10":"tag-categories-art","11":"tag-global-kickers-black-history-month","12":"tag-good-for-good-for-going-in-a-group","13":"tag-good-for-good-for-going-solo","14":"tag-good-for-good-for-going-with-friends","15":"tag-good-for-good-for-locals","16":"tag-good-for-good-for-tourists","17":"tag-new-york","18":"tag-new-york-city","19":"tag-news-art","20":"tag-newyork","21":"tag-newyorkcity","22":"tag-ny","23":"tag-nyc","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-united-states-of-america","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115063404910972076","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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