Overwhelming public response has been cited as the reason why the city was willing to pay $500K for a version of this Tubman statue. Now that claim is disputed.

Since July, the controversy over Philadelphia awarding, and then withdrawing, a $500,000 no-bid commission to create a permanent statue of Harriet Tubman has made worldwide news.

In March, Mayor Jim Kenney and Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy announced plans to give the commission to Wesley Wofford, the North Carolina-based sculptor who created the temporary, traveling Tubman statue, Journey to Freedom, that stood outside City Hall last winter.

Faye Anderson, a public historian and vocal critic of the initial commission, said the city told the public that “they decided to award a no-bid commission to Wesley Wofford ‘in response to the outpouring of love and pride for the Journey of Freedom sculpture,’ ” but is now in possession of city records showing that Creative Philadelphia’s top officials were discussing hiring Wofford to create a permanent statue of Tubman just two weeks after the statue was unveiled on Jan. 11.

The right-to-know requests that Anderson filed with the city have yielded documentation that shows that Creative Philadelphia CEO Kelly R. Lee and Public Art Director Marguerite Anglin exchanged emails with Wofford and his wife, Odyssey Wofford, his studio director, on Jan. 25, and again on Feb. 3. about details for a new statue.

“The African American community is rightly outraged that a moment of civic pride has devolved into an irreparable breach of trust,” she told The Inquirer.

Lee did not respond to requests for comments about those early emails.

» READ MORE: Mayor Kenney, Creative Philly announce they will issue open call for artists for $500K Harriet Tubman statue

Not long after the announcement that Wofford would create a permanent statue, there was a public outcry because it was awarded without an open call for other artists, especially for Black and women artists, to compete.

After seven City Council members also objected to the no-bid process, Creative Philadelphia relented and reversed its decision.

The office announced it would seek an open call for artists, but the announcement had a twist: It wasn’t an open call for artists to create a statue of Tubman, the iconic abolitionist who made her first escape to Philadelphia in 1849. Instead, it was an open call for artists to create a statue of Tubman or another African American hero.

Now the city is compiling the results of a new public input survey that ended Oct. 24. That survey asked city residents to choose which African American historical figure should be cast in bronze.

In response to Creative Philadelphia’s Twitter announcement asking people to answer the survey, Anderson tweeted this:

“@CreativePHL‘s public engagement is performative and a sham. Marguerite Anglin was discussing no-bid commission for Wesley Wofford 2 WEEKS after Harriett Tubman statue was unveiled.”

“We are currently reviewing the survey results and will share them with the African American Historic Statue Advisory Committee at our next meeting scheduled for early November,” Lee wrote in an email on Friday. She said she would make the results public on the Creative Philadelphia website at that time.

Another critic of the process, Karen Warrington, a writer and cultural advocate, said she submitted her survey and wrote a note to Lee saying she also thought the survey was a “sham.”

» READ MORE: A Harriet Tubman statue for the city is no longer a sure thing. City’s open call will allow for other proposed subjects.

Warrington elaborated with this email which Lee provided to The Inquirer:

“The ‘survey’ to me, is a tactic to muddy the waters on an issue that had already received consensus. There was overwhelming support for a statue at City Hall to honor Harriet Tubman a historic African American woman with direct ties to Philadelphia. She was a heroic fighter for freedom for enslaved Black people. But seemingly, until there was a demand for an original art piece rather than a copy and there was a call for an open process for the selection of an artist, only then, did the idea of a survey emerge.

“Harriet Tubman is a mighty figure in the history of America, and the story of her resilience, commitment and bravery is just beginning to be fully told. I am shocked that you and your office would stand in the way of the erection of a Tubman statue by complicating what should have been a straightforward process.”

Asked to respond, Lee forwarded her emailed response to Warrington to The Inquirer:

“Hi Karen, I am sorry that you are disappointed in this process and feel that the survey muddies the waters. When it was announced in August that we would do an Open Call for Artists we stated then that the open call would welcome proposals for a permanent statue that celebrates Harriet Tubman’s story or another African American’s contribution to our nation’s history. The expanded theme allows the City to continue to be responsive to the public’s overwhelming desire for a Harriet Tubman statue while also inviting artists to propose their own creative expression and original ideas.

“In addition, OACCE always intended to use surveys and other ways to engage the public for this project. We use surveys as a tool regularly, and have distributed eight surveys city-wide for public art projects since 2021.”

Lee told The Inquirer bluntly: “The survey is not a sham.”

Further, Lee said the call for artists was “not to pivot from” having a Tubman statue. “The goal was to expand the theme to allow artists the option to provide proposals for either a Harriet Tubman statue or provide their own creative expressions and original ideas for this permanent statue.”

» READ MORE: Harriet Tubman deserves a permanent statue in Philly. Few others are worthy.

Now, Joseph Certaine, city managing director in former Mayor Ed Rendell’s administration, is trying to build a coalition to support a new Tubman statue.

Certaine said he agreed with Maisha Sullivan-Ongoza and the Celebrating the Legacy of Nana Harriet Tubman Committee, which first opposed the no-bid commission.

“Now the rules have been changed in midstream, and that’s what people are upset about,” Certaine said.

He is calling for a strategy meeting at 2 p.m. Nov. 11 at the Church of the Advocate, 1801 W. Diamond St., “to develop an organized action plan in support of the Harriet Tubman statue in Philadelphia.”

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to incorporate the latest responses from Creative Philadelphia CEO Kelly R. Lee.