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Members of advisory committee were among those who urged city to ‘pivot’ on Harriet Tubman statue

Some members of the African American Historic Statue Advisory Committee had cautioned city officials that awarding a no-bid commission to Wesley Wofford might create a pushback from the public.

Evelyn Green and her sister Danetta Green Johnson sat next to each other on Monday as Mayor Jim Kenney announced that sculptor Alvin Pettit was chosen to design a permanent statue of Harriet Tubman to go outside City Hall.

The two sisters are not only distant cousins of Harriet Tubman — they said their fourth great-grandfather was a first cousin to Harriet Tubman’s mother — but they were members of the African American Historic Statue Advisory Committee that helped select Jersey City artist Pettit.

Evelyn Green, who lives in Philadelphia, said some members of the advisory committee cautioned the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, the city arts office known as Creative Philadelphia, that members of the public would reject the idea of “appointing” a statue commission to one person without an open-call process.

» READ MORE: Sculptor Alvin Pettit will design the new Harriet Tubman statue in Philadelphia

Green said that some committee members spoke out against the original city plan to give a direct commission to Wesley Wofford, the artist who had brought a traveling version of his statue, Journey to Freedom, to Philadelphia in early 2022.

“I told [city officials] that it should not be a case where we are just appointing [Wofford] to design a statue,” Green said. “Yes, his statue was very good and very inspiring, but you must have an open call.”

Green said she believes wherever you have a public contract, there should be a process that is open. She said some members of the advisory committee also agreed and were speaking to city officials about this even before members of the public began to campaign against the direct commission to Wofford.

At the announcement ceremony on Monday, Kelly Lee, the city’s chief cultural officer and the executive director of Creative Philly, acknowledged “it was the public’s advocacy that made us pivot from direct commission and seek open call.”

Green commended Kenney and other city officials for listening to the community’s concerns.

Two students from Friends Select School, Vivien Johnson and Kate Gunther, were also members of the statue advisory committee and in the audience at the Mayor’s Reception Room at City Hall when the announcement of Pettit’s selection was made.

Johnson, 17, a senior, said that they were named to the advisory committee when Wofford was expected to design the statue.

“We came into this thinking we would give our input on one artist and a specific statue,” Johnson said. “Then we got to be part of a process to pick a whole new artist.” Johnson said she thought it was a good idea to have a wider selection of artists to chose from.

As for Guther, a 16-year-old junior, called it “a profound opportunity” to be part of the process.

“I appreciate getting to see other people’s perspectives and I was also able to appreciate the community’s involvement.”

As for Pettit, the artist who is designing the new statue, he noted that he grew up in Baltimore — after being born in Washington, D.C. — in a family of civil rights activists.

“My grandfather back in Maryland fought to desegregate public schools in the 1950s and my father in Baltimore is a civil-rights lawyer. Now, with this statue, this gives me a chance as an artist to be part of the narrative of that movement,” Pettit said.