The Paradox of Invisibility

Teaching architectural history with a commitment to social justice presents an epistemological challenge for two key reasons. First, the spatialization of social justice is irredeemably political, raising the question as to how to discuss politics in the classroom. Second, how does an educator articulate an ethical framework within which to situate histories of injustice and exclusion in the realm of knowledge production? By analyzing diverse public reactions to the controversial Emancipation Memorial (also known as the Freedman’s Memorial) in Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC during the social justice movements of 2020, this paper examines the politics of social justice through an exploration of the notion of “invisibility,” a paradoxical condition that, as African American novelist Ralph Ellison suggests, can imply both a fantasy of empowerment and a tragedy of powerlessness. The Freedman’s Memorial was erected in 1876 to commemorate United States President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which many American textbooks credit with “freeing the slaves.” Set on a high pedestal, the monument depicts Lincoln as a towering savior and the unshackled man kneeling in front of him. Though sculptor Thomas Ball modeled the kneeling man after the formerly enslaved man Archer Alexander, the monument denies Alexander’s personal history and his traumatic escape to freedom. It is Lincoln’s heroism, and not that of formerly enslaved people like Alexander, that is disseminated through an entrenched web of hegemonic cultural consent. How does an educator discuss Alexander’s invisibility in the context of this memorial to deepen the understanding of racial ideologies undergirding the institution of slavery in America? The paper argues that microhistory can serve as a powerful historiographic antidote to the dehumanizing effects of invisibility.