Richard Newman, a research officer at Harvard University's W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research, said it's widely believed in academic circles that Laboulaye meant for the statue to memorialize the slaves, as well as commemorate the recent Union victory in the Civil War and the life of Abraham Lincoln. However, by the time sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi's 151-foot statue was erected in New York Harbor in 1886, European immigration had begun to rise dramatically and the statue took on a whole new symbolism, he said. Joseph also is checking into the possibility a 21-inch model of Lady Liberty completed by Bartholdi in 1870 may have been based on the likeness of a black woman. Joseph refused Monday to say what she has discovered so far. Her final report is due for release this summer.
History is much more complicated than that.
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