After walking around the Brooklyn Heights area, I came across the statue of Henry Ward Beecher where he stood tall on a podium. On the statue, down below stood an African American girl as she wiped his podium clean. This sight greatly angered me, being a young Black girl myself. New York City, Wake Up! Is this how we want to represent African American women?

Being the minority we are, we have little to no representation in our city’s monuments. Out of the estimated 150 monuments in NYC, only one is of a Black woman. 

This is why we are deciding to push for our city to create more monuments of historical Black women, starting off with Jane Bolin. Jane dedicated a lot to history, being the very first African American woman to graduate for Yale Law School. On top of that, she was the first African American woman to join the New York City Bar Association and the New York City Law Department. She dedicated a lot to the major of law, and broke many race and gender barriers.

Making sure that the stories of African American heroes like Jane Bolin is important as we must remember, Black History is American History. Creating a monument in our city to celebrate her legacy will make sure that her contributions to history are not forgotten.