DEAR EDITOR:

What story is Salem trying to tell by erecting an Abraham Lincoln statue? It seems they are trying to whitewash our radical history with monuments symbolizing what our city represents today.

Let’s be honest, Salem is 97 percent white and Republican. Today’s Republicans push legislation that would ban an honest account of history. Lincoln never went to Salem.

Why do I take issue with a statue of the “Great Emancipator”? It ignores our actual past and the very people living in Salem before and after emancipation who were working to end slavery and help enslaved and newly freed people, even if it meant breaking federal laws!

Why not erect statues of people who lived here and did work like George Lucus and Dan Hise? Why not tell stories of people here, part of America’s first successful interracial liberation movement? Is it because they are not well known and won’t bring tourism revenue?

Republicans say they want teachers to stick to basics and facts, yet they want to erect statues based on symbolism, not local history facts.

Here are some Salem facts: Dan Hise owned a brickyard. George Lucas was a skilled stone mason working for Hise. Hise and Lucas were abolitionists. Hise was white; Lucus was black. Lucus was an Underground Railroad conductor. Hise’s home was safe for people seeking freedom. Both men knew John Brown. Hise made sure a monument was erected for Edwin Coppock in Hope Cemetery (one of Brown’s Harpers Ferry men.) Lucas didn’t go with Brown to Harpers Ferry but was with him in Kansas. In 1869, the Boyd Lodge Black Masons began building Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church at Howard and 3rd Street. Lucas was a Boyd Lodge Mason; Hise supplied bricks for the church. August 4, 1869, Frederick Douglass spoke at the church site. That year he did his Composite Nation Speech.

Neither of Salem’s A.M.E. church locations is historically marked, and I’ve been unable to pinpoint the Boyd Mason Lodge location. Is that because these places were considered unimportant? How can we better understand our history by including black-operated establishments? Understanding roles of Black Mason Lodges and A.M.E. Churches helps tell more thorough historical accounts, especially when linked to work being done by Quakers. It was an interracial liberation movement.

A statue of Lincoln, symbolizing our collective belief in freedom and equality, is a facade covering up the repressive content of today’s Republican legislation.

Another proposal for an Abby Kelly Salem statue, the enslaved girl rescued off a Salem train, reinforces a white savior narrative.

Let’s stick to basics, facts in Salem with statues of Hise and Lucas, Brown and Douglass. Tell their stories and bring our interracial past to light. No need to perpetuate myth when truth has so much more to offer!

HEATHER SMITH

Salem