Emancipation Memorial

  • ARCHER ALEXANDER DAY

    ARCHER ALEXANDER DAY

    On September 24, 1863, a St. Louis newspaper announced “Archer Alexander, a negro … whose last master was Richard Hickman Pitman of the County of St. Charles…is hereby declared to be an emancipated slave and a free man!

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  • Emancipation

    Emancipation

    The controversial Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park in Washington DC with President Abraham Lincoln includes Archer Alexander, an enslaved man seen rising in freedom given by the Emancipation Proclamation, first announced on this date…

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  • April 14th

    April 14th

    Originally called the Freedom Memorial, the Emancipation Memorial, still stands today in Lincoln Park, in Washington, D.C. The Memorial to President Abraham Lincoln, dedicated on April 14, 1876, was the first memorial to Lincoln erected by the formerly enslaved in grateful appreciation for the Emancipation Proclamation. The enslaved man seen with Lincoln was a real…

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  • Emancipation Memorial

    Emancipation Memorial

    As we celebrate Juneteenth, we must recall the reason. The Emancipation Memorial was erected in 1876, by the formerly enslaved, and freedom seekers, to “the best friend the colored people ever had” President Abraham Lincoln. The man with Lincoln is freedom seeker Archer Alexander… read more

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  • Juneteenth is a celebration of Freedom

    Look closely at the look on Archer Alexander’s face. Have you seen this memorial before? It was dedicated in 1876, with over 25,000 black people attending and its original name is the Freedom Memorial. It was entirely paid for by thousands of formerly enslaved black people.

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  • MUHAMMAD ALI’S GREAT-GREAT-GREAT GRANDFATHER

    Archer Alexander is the great-great-great grandfather of Muhammad Ali.

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  • The Emancipation Monument

    The Emancipation Monument

    On April 14, 1876, a 70-year-old black man named Archer Alexander, would be immortalized as the man that represented the former enslaved on the Freedom Memorial in our Nation’s Capital. President Lincoln was the very man who had given him freedom …

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  • Upcoming events on September 24th

    Now over 150 years later we will honor the life of this hero with two important events, on Saturday, September 24, 2022.  Saint Charles City and County will recognize this hero Archer Alexander at 10 am in the morning in front of the OPO Startups at 119 South Main, where the courthouse stood in 1863.…

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  • What would you do?

    What would you do?

    Imagine yourself enslaved in a state that is caught between two hostile forces. On a cold winter’s night in Missouri in January 1863, Archer Alexander overheard his enslaver Richard Pitman holding a secret meeting in the back room of the local Postmaster and storeowner James Naylor, in his mercantile on the Boone’s Lick Road in…

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  • The Emancipation Monument

    The Emancipation Monument

    The Emancipation Monument “Freedom’s Memorial” was paid for entirely by funds from the formerly enslaved. It sits in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C. today. It was dedicated by Frederick Douglass on April 14, 1876.

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  • Stop removing our history

    Stop Congress from removing the Emancipation Monument from our Nation’s Capitol. Add your name to the Petition today. This is the only memorial entirely paid for by thousands of formerly enslaved and U.S. Colored Troops in our Nation’s capitol. https://www.change.org/EmancipationMonumentDC Freedom’s Memorial, also known as the Emancipation Monument in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C. has

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  • An American Hero

    An American Hero

    Archer can still be seen today, rising from his knees, his shackles broken, looking up towards Lincoln. Archer Alexander is no longer just a local boy, as he rises next to Lincoln on the Emancipation Memorial today, in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C.. Please sign the Petition to save the monument .

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  • Keep the Emancipation Memorial Statue

    Who was Keith Winstead’s ancestor Archer Alexander? In 1863, he was a man who chose to do the right thing. When he overheard his master plotting to sabotage the local railroad bridge, he risked being lynched and reported it. He fled from St Charles County to St. Louis, where he was taken into the home…

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  • Looking for descendants

    Looking for descendants

    In 1829, a small group of four families, Campbell, McCluer, Wilson and Alexander, all wealthy and well educated . planters from Virginia, came with their enslaved, about two dozen of them. They settled in “Dardenne” along the Booneslick Road, south of the Zumwalt place, (O’Fallon) in St. Charles County, Missouri. They were all members of

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  • The Emancipation Memorial

    The Emancipation Memorial

    When his friend William Greenleaf Eliot shared a photograph of the Emancipation Memorial with Archer Alexander, he emotionally exclaimed I’se free![i] The bronze monument features Alexander, an enslaved African-American on one knee and wearing a slave’s cuff and rising before President Abraham Lincoln. It was dedicated April 14th, 1876, marking the 11thAnniversary of Lincoln’s assassination,…

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  • Grave located

    The final resting place of Archer Alexander, who was famously immortalized in the Emancipation Memorial, in Washington, D.C. in 1876 has been found. The location was unknown, and searched for by his descendant Keith Winstead for years.

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