City’s public input survey shows most area residents want a Harriet Tubman statue

Harriet Tubman was the overwhelming choice of Philadelphia area residents who took part in a survey asking which African American historical figure the city should honor with a statue.

Tubman’s name was listed 260 times out of a total of 1,041 suggestions from 515 respondents. The name that received the next highest number of mentions was Marian Anderson, listed 38 times.

The city’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE) posted its public input survey on its website early last month. The office, also known as Creative Philadelphia, released a summary of the report and the full survey results late Monday afternoon.

Of the 1,041 suggestions, there were 223 “unique names” of African Americans, the report said.

Here are the top five names and the number of times they were suggested:

Harriet Tubman, 260; Marian Anderson, 38 ; Leon H. Sullivan, 37; the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 36; and Frederick Douglass, 28.

Some others: John Coltrane, 25; Cecil B. Moore, 25; William Still, 23; Paul Robeson, 19; and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, 15.

Among the next group of names, former President Barack Obama and civil rights leader Malcolm X each garnered 13 mentions. Also cited were Patti LaBelle, 3; Sonia Sanchez , 3; Angela Davis, 2; Will Smith, 2; and Wilt Chamberlain, 2.

Each respondent was able to list up to three possible choices to be honored with a statue. The survey was available on Creative Philadelphia’s website from Oct. 3-24.

According to the Creative Philadelphia website, the “Call for Artists” application process opens on Nov. 30; an artist informational meeting is scheduled for Dec. 14, and the deadline for submitting proposals is Jan. 26, 2023.

The city’s report initially said: “The majority of respondents, almost 25%, want a statue of Harriet Tubman.”

However, that 25% figure actually applies to the number of suggestions that included Tubman, rather than the number of respondents who did.

Some observers questioned whether the city’s report should have said that more than 50% of the 515 people who responded named Tubman.

“The math ain’t mathing.”

Faye Anderson, a public historian who has filed Right-to-Know requests about earlier plans for a statue, questioned how the data were presented.

“The Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy overstated support for a no-bid commission for Wesley Wofford based on a 28-second video posted on Facebook,” Anderson said Tuesday.

“OACCE has now understated support for Harriet Tubman by inviting the public to submit three names in the ‘African American Historic Sculpture Public Survey.’ The fact is more than 50 percent of respondents want a statue memorializing the American icon. Tubman’s legacy is dishonored by diluting that support with the inclusion of the likes of Clarence Thomas, O.J. Simpson and Kanye West in the survey analysis.”

Maisha Sullivan-Ongoza, of the Celebrating the Legacy of Nana Harriet Tubman Committee that opposed the no-bid commission for Wofford, said the group was still studying the city’s survey report. But she raised doubts about the interpretation of the results.

“The math ain’t mathing,” she said.

She also said the group believes the call for artists’ timeline seems to be rushed with artists having to submit proposals between now and Jan. 26, 2023, when many will be busy with Christmas and other holiday plans.

After The Inquirer raised these questions, Kelly Lee, the city’s chief cultural officer, said that the Creative Philadelphia Office has amended the report to explain the number of “responses” compared to the number of “respondents.”

“We updated the survey results on the website that now states:

”RESULT: The majority of the 1,041 responses, almost 25%, were for a statue of Harriet Tubman who was suggested the most times. The majority of the 515 survey respondents, almost 51% want a statue of Harriet Tubman.”

The announcement of the survey results was yet another twist in a months-long running saga.

Earlier this year, in March, Mayor Jim Kenney and Creative Philadelphia announced plans to commission a permanent statue to honor Tubman.

The city said four million people responded positively to Wofford’s statue, Harriet Tubman: Journey to Freedom, which was at City Hall from Jan. 11 through March 31.

However, the city faced a backlash of opposition from residents upset that officials were awarding a $500,000 commission to Wofford, a sculptor based in North Carolina, without seeking an open-call process to allow Black and women artists to compete for the opportunity.

At a city arts meeting in June, Sullivan-Ongoza, and other members of the Celebrating the Legacy of Nana Harriet Tubman Committee, told officials that Wofford should refuse the commission and allow other artists to apply.

» READ MORE: City’s plan for $500K Harriet Tubman monument comes under fire for not being open to Black artists

By August, seven City Council members wrote a letter also opposing the no-bid commission. Only then did the city say it would have an open-call process, but Creative Philadelphia added a wrench in the plans. The office announced it would conduct a public survey to see if residents wanted a statue of Tubman or of another African American historic person.

At least a couple of suggestions, which got one mention each, were not Black Americans: Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Edith Houghton, a women’s professional baseball player who became the first woman scout in Major League Baseball.

Among dozens who got one vote each were Kanye West and O.J. Simpson.

Some of those suggestions included the names of Octavius Catto, of whom there is already a statue on the south apron of City Hall. And Marian Anderson came in among the top five choices, although a statue of Anderson is already underway.

The Marian Anderson Memorial Fund task force, a private ad hoc group that is not affiliated with the city government, raised more than $1 million for a statue of Anderson that is to stand outside the Academy of Music.

The group, which includes civic leaders, the head of the Marian Anderson Museum, and Kimmel Center officials, announced on Oct. 18 that it has selected Tanda Francis, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based artist who was educated at Drexel University, to sculpt Anderson’s statue.