$500K Harriet Tubman statue controversy gets national attention, prompts a petition, and elicits the sculptor’s response

Philadelphia’s controversy over awarding a direct commission for a permanent Harriet Tubman monument has aroused widespread national interest and a split among the city’s own statue advisory committee.

During a June 15 public input meeting, critics denounced city arts officials for giving the $500,000 commission to Wesley Wofford, who created the traveling Journey to Freedom statue, without an open-call process to seek submissions from other artists.

Since The Inquirer first reported on the statue conflict, the news has spread worldwide. Publications such as the Art Newspaper, Art Net News, Art Forum, the Griot, Essence.com, and Hyperallergic.com have all picked up on the story.

“We are getting messages from artists around the country, and everyone said that we have become their voices, because it happens all the time — that they are left out of [opportunities] for public art commissions,” said Maisha Sullivan-Ongoza, who spoke out at the June meeting.

At that Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy meeting, Sullivan-Ongoza, a member of both the Sankofa Artisans Guild and the newly formed Celebrating the Legacy of Nana Harriet Tubman Committee, alleged Wofford was “renting and selling” Tubman’s image to cities around the country.

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

Last week, the Celebrating the Legacy committee launched a Change.org petition, demanding that Mayor Jim Kenney provide an open call for other artists. As of Friday, the petition had nearly 300 signatures.

Kelly Lee, the city’s chief cultural officer and the executive director of the arts office, also known as Creative Philadelphia, announced the June meeting as one of several opportunities for the public to provide the arts office with ideas about the elements or themes they would like Wofford to include in the new permanent statue.

Lee said Wofford would take those ideas and create a different statue from Journey to Freedom.

Instead, the city official mostly heard criticisms at that meeting that the commission should not have been automatically given to Wofford. Critics said the city was being deprived of seeing what other artists, particularly Black artists, might envision.

Others said that at just 9 feet tall, the Wofford statue appeared too small compared with other City Hall statues and needed to be more monumental, given Harriet Tubman’s iconic history as an abolitionist who led scores of enslaved people to freedom.

In a recent interview, Wofford said it was hurtful to hear some of the criticisms about the commission, both during the June meeting and since the story has been widely circulated.

Wofford said Sullivan-Ongoza’s “renting and selling” remarks were causing him to be personally attacked. Although he has gotten letters of support from both Black and white artists saying he deserves the commission, the experience hasn’t been pleasant, he said.

“I am a human being first,” the North Carolina artist told The Inquirer. “It was hurtful because the things she was saying is the antithesis of my intent and who I am.”

“It’s hurtful to have someone say some things like that about you. Anyone who knows me, knows my heart,” he added.

Wofford, who grew up the son of an electrician and an elementary-school assistant teacher, said he did not come from a wealthy background. He said his father’s father could not read or write. But at the same time, he said, he recognizes there is such a thing as “white privilege.”

“I associate privilege with wealth. And white privilege with having a leg up in the nation whose rules were pretty much built upon systemic racism. They both have the same root cause — money. And that generationally in this country has been held by white men. But none of my ancestors!” he wrote to The Inquirer.

Wofford and Sullivan-Ongoza had an exchange about their different perspectives on the Wesley Wofford Sculpture Studio’s Facebook page.

In their back-and-forth, Wofford told Sullivan-Ongoza that the discussion about having an open-call process involving other artists “is a valid conversation for the Philadelphia community to have. But these articles have you quoted comparing me to plantation owners and that has propagated vicious and deeply hurtful personal attacks. You are also spreading many other untruths about me and my intentions in the world.”

To which Sullivan-Ongoza responded: “I don’t deny you are feeling wronged and attacked. So do I and others who are offended by seeing Nana Harriet Tubman’s image being rented, or sold by White people. We are not attacking, we are challenging the lack of a process.”

Wofford’s studio leases the traveling statue of Tubman to cities for about $2,000 a month, plus insurance costs. But Wofford said that his company has not earned any profits and that he is responding to a demand from cities asking him to display it.

The 9-foot Journey to Freedom statue was placed at the City Hall apron from Jan. 11 to March 31 this year to celebrate Tubman’s 200th birthday, Black History Month, and Women’s History Month. (The Tubman figure is 7 feet tall, placed atop a nearly 2-foot granite base.)

Tubman, born enslaved in Maryland in 1822, was an abolitionist who made her first escape in 1849 to Philadelphia. She returned south several times to lead at least 70 people to freedom on the Underground Railroad network of safe houses and trails.

During the Civil War, she was a Union nurse and spy and led the Combahee River raid that freed 700 enslaved people in South Carolina.

Despite the petition against it, Lee said she intends to keep the commission for Wofford in place.

“Philadelphia would not be commissioning this permanent Harriet Tubman statue if not for the public’s positive response to Wofford’s temporary statue,” Lee said in a statement. “It would be inappropriate for the City to bring in a different artist to recreate the artistic expression of Wesley Wofford.”

She also said the city has received more than 400 responses to its recent public survey about their ideas on the statue.

Lee sent The Inquirer copies of letters of support from four Black people — three artists and Adrian Holmes, the director of the Alpha Genesis Community Development Corp. in Cambridge, Md., which commissioned Wofford to create a permanent Tubman statue in Dorchester County, the abolitionist’s birthplace.

Yet the controversy has also spawned differences of opinion among the city’s own Harriet Tubman Statue Advisory Committee.

Lee provided a statement from members of Tubman’s maternal family; two family members are on the city’s advisory committee.

While the statement supports keeping Wofford as the artist, the Tubman family recognized the lack of an open call:

“We believe Mr. Wofford is an excellent choice for creating the permanent statue of Harriet Tubman. We agree that a call to artists may have provided an opportunity for an artist of color, but support Wesley Wofford receiving the commission.”

Cornelia Swinson, executive director of the Johnson House Historical site, who also is a member of the city’s advisory committee, agreed with those petitioning for an open call.

“I do think the conversation in the community and with the [Tubman legacy] committee, what they’re asking for is appropriate,” Swinson told The Inquirer. “If it is public money, it should be a public process. The artist that the city has chosen should go through the same process as anyone when you vet public art.”

Advisory committee member Ashley Jordan, executive director of the African American Museum in Philadelphia, issued a general statement that neither supported nor opposed an open-call process:

“Philadelphia is where Harriet Tubman first found freedom, found community, and found inspiration. My hope is that this statue can offer similar feelings and remind us all about the important role that Philadelphia played in Harriet’s life. This recognition is overdue, and I support it.”

While Wofford’s race came up during the June 15 city meeting, open-call advocates said they were mostly concerned about the process of awarding the commission without seeking other proposals.

“He said I was causing him to be attacked, but we are challenging the process,” Sullivan-Ongoza told The Inquirer. “We are challenging an unjust and unfair process.”

“We are challenging an unjust and unfair process.”

Sandra Mills, a retired political director for 1199C National Union of Hospital and Healthcare Employees, is working with Sullivan-Ongoza and the Tubman legacy committee.

“I have a huge concern that this was a tainted process,” said Mills. She added she was part of global committees that oversaw the selection of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rosa Parks statues in Washington.

“I don’t think that Harriet Tubman’s legacy should be sidelined by one person making the decision,” she said, referring to Lee.

“This is not a criticism of that man’s statue,” Mills said. “We are talking about a future permanent statue. We are talking about a process moving forward.”