New monument honors pioneers
New York
A bronze statue depicting women's rights pioneers Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony was unveiled in Central Park on Wednesday, becoming the 167-year-old park's first monument honoring historical heroines, as opposed to fictional female characters like Alice in Wonderland and Shakespeare's Juliet.
The 14-foot-tall monument to the three 19th-century advocates, dedicated on the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the amendment that enshrined women's right to vote in the U.S. Constitution, joins prominent men including Hans Christian Andersen, Simon Bolivar and Alexander Hamilton who are honored with busts and statues in the 840-acre New York City park.
The monument shows Truth and Stanton seated at a small table, with Anthony standing between them. The commission from Monumental Women, a nonprofit that formed in 2014 to raise funds for a suffragist statue, originally included just Stanton and Anthony, two white leaders of the fight for women's equality. Truth, a Black woman who escaped slavery and went on to campaign for abolition was a late addition.