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Norton Files Bill for DC Statues & the Diversity They Would Introduce in the Capitol (3/25/09)

March 25, 2009

Norton Files Bill for D.C. Statues and the Diversity They Would Introduce in the Capitol

March 25, 2009

WASHINGTON, DC - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today introduced a bill to permit two statues honoring the residents of the District of Columbia to be placed in the U.S. Capitol, where statues are placed representing the 50 states. The D.C. statues would likely be Frederick Douglass and Pierre L'Enfant, known for their contributions to the city and to the nation, selected by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities through a public process. Norton said that the D.C. statues "could help cure the diversity embarrassment of statues in the Capitol." When the Capitol Visitors Center (CVC) opened in December, many were surprised and embarrassed that even in the part of the CVC Congress named Emancipation Hall to honor the slaves and free blacks who helped build the Capitol, there were no statues of African Americans. The Congresswoman said, "It also is an embarrassment, and an indefensible one, that 600,000 American citizens, who live in the nation's capital, where all 50 states have statues, have none of their own."

The Congresswoman, chair of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the naming and designation of public spaces, was a co-sponsor of a bill that named a major historical hall in the new Capitol Visitor Center "Emancipation Hall" in honor of the unheralded slaves and free blacks who built the Capitol. That bill was passed in 2007.

The statue bill introduced today is part of the Congresswoman's "Free and Equal D.C." series, which includes the D.C. House Voting Rights Act, bills for budget autonomy and legislative autonomy, an elected district attorney position, and other bills designed to ensure that District residents, who pay federal taxes and fight in wars like other Americans are granted the same privileges as other Americans.

Two Washington area sculptors were hired to complete the D.C. statues. Last year the Fredrick Douglass statue was placed at One Judiciary Square.