Liberty

Just a tourist attraction ?

The Statue of Liberty is one of our most famous and iconic pieces of art. The history of it’s creation and the funding to make it happen covers over 20 years.

The twists and turns of the story and the politics and evolution of the final design and construction would take up a Masters Class to fully grasp.

The funding involved people from Pulitzer to elderly widows and school children. It’s amazing that it actually got built at all.

But it did get built, shipped here from France and erected. New York and much of the country embraced it. Some writers and reporters who had formerly been enslaved and were dealing with segregation and Jim Crow were not so kind or interested.

But it became a beacon to immigrants mostly from Europe who crossed the ocean and sailed into NY harbor looking for a fresh start and a better way of life for their families. Many with just the clothes on their backs.

That very large copper clad woman with a torch in her hand became the welcome and inspiration to a lot of people…including many of our ancestors.

How many films have we seen it in ?

From Charlie Chaplin’s “The Immigrant” to “The Godfather” to “Planet of the Apes”.

Today I’m wondering if she’s become just a large tourist attraction…or if words from the Emma Lazarus poem still mean anything to us ?

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles….

cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Peace