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Going Away Celebration for Douglass Statue Moving to Capitol, Monday

 
At the city’s send-off celebration of the move of the District of Columbia’s Frederick Douglass statue to the U.S. Capitol,Steven Weitzman, who created the statue, will offer a rare glimpse of how a major work is created, and John Muller, the author of the book Frederick Douglass in Washington: The Lion of Anacostia,will speak about Douglass’s little known but deep commitment to the rights of D.C. citizens. Mayor Vincent Gray and Council Chair Phil Mendelson will also help celebrate the enactment of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (D-DC) bill to place the first-ever D.C. statue in the Capitol. 
The celebration will take place on Monday, February 4,2013,from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. in thelobby of One Judiciary Square (441 4th Street NW), where the statue is currently displayed.
Douglass was known as an abolitionist and an international human rights champion, but he was also a great fighter for equal citizenship for D.C. residents in particular, and served as Recorder of Deeds and U.S. Marshal here. Norton has asked that the official ceremony to receive the D.C. statue in the Capitol be held this month, Black History Month, but that may not be possible. Norton said, “Monday’s ceremony will celebrate not only Frederick Douglass the storied Black History Month figure, but also Douglass the Washingtonian and the preeminent fighter for D.C. rights.”
The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, through a public process, choose to depict Frederick Douglass in a statue because of his work and contributions to the District of Columbia in particular.
 
 

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