New York plans to honor Harriet Tubman in Capitol

ALBANY, New York — Governor Kathy Hochul is pushing to place a statue of Harriet Tubman in the U.S. Capitol. This effort has support from both the state Senate and Assembly. They want to replace the statue of Robert Livingston with Tubman's statue in Statuary Hall. Currently, there are 100 statues representing each state in Statuary Hall, and this change would be the first for New York since the 1870s. Hochul has long admired Tubman. She shared her childhood love for a book about Tubman with school children, recalling how she often sneaked out of bed to read it. Since 2003, 17 statues have been removed from Statuary Hall, mostly those linked to the Confederacy. While efforts to remove such statues have met resistance, some have succeeded, like the recent replacement of Charles Brantley Aycock with Billy Graham in North Carolina. Hochul has visited Tubman's historic home several times in her career. In 2022, she named a canal boat after Tubman and announced plans to unveil a new Tubman statue in Binghamton this Friday. Livingston, who was New York's first chancellor, owned slaves, which has affected how he is viewed historically. Hochul’s proposal for Tubman includes forming a five-member commission to finalize the statue's design with the Capitol's architect. State Senator Jamaal Bailey emphasized Tubman's importance, stating she represents not just Black history, but humanity as a whole. While Livingston's statue may be removed from the Capitol, replicas of it will remain, including one in New York's state Senate lobby.