Recognizing Black Servicemen in Bronze

The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument was created to memorialize and celebrate all the men of Rhode Island who served and died in the military during the Civil War. As Reverend Augustus Woodbury put it in his oration at the dedicatory service of the monument, it meant to include soldiers and sailors who were “men of all creeds…of various nativity and different race.” [1] In doing so, this monument would also make history as one of the first monuments to recognize the service of Black men in the military. Next to the heading “14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery,” in parentheses is the word “colored.” It is underneath this heading where the names of fallen Black servicemen are etched and memorialized in bronze. After the end of the Civil War and the beginning of Black emancipation, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument became one of the markers of expanded possibility for Black men (and women) in memorywork. While the presence of colored men is acknowledged in name alone—as the male figures on the monument all take on a white, Greco-Roman appearance—their role in the Civil War is visually represented elsewhere on the monument in the form of a Black allegorical woman. [2]

This Black allegorical woman is one of four bas-reliefs situated toward the bottom of the memorial. Within this memorial, these four women are integral to the work of the monument as they are the figures viewers can see most clearly and interact with through walking up a set of stairs that lead to each of them. The Black allegorical woman looks upward and has softer facial features, a roundish nose, plump lips, and hair in a mixture of tight curls and braids that coalesce into an image of Blackness. She wears a simple garment that cuts off below the knees with one sleeve pushed down toward her elbow crease, exposing her right breast. She is barefoot. In her ears she wears thick hoop earrings, and, on her wrists, she wears manacles with broken chains. One chain rests in the palm of her right hand.