Presidential Address: White Freedom and the Lady of Liberty

Tyler Stovall, University of California, Santa Cruz

The Statue of Liberty is the most famous and recognizable images of freedom in the modern world, and a cherished national icon of the United States. This presentation will consider an important yet usually unacknowledged part of the statue’s history, its role as a racial symbol. Looking at both the statue’s origins in France and its history as a public monument in America, I will explore its broader significance to the racialized nature of freedom in the modern world.