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Although formerly enslaved Americans paid for this statue, the design and sculpting process was done without their input or participation, and it shows, the statue fails to depict how enslaved African Americans pressed for their own emancipation. At the time, they had only recently been liberated from slavery and were grateful for any recognition of their freedom. However, in his keynote address at the unveiling of the statue, Frederick Douglass pointedly did not praise the statue, and, indeed, in private remarks, went as far as to say, it ‘showed the Negro on his knee when a more manly attitude would have been indicative of freedom.’.