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History (Education)

This anti-slavery feature of the Statue of Liberty is a symbol for how we treat our history

Lady Liberty's broken shackles are "hidden in plain sight."

Photo credit: Canva

The Statue of Liberty has broken shackles at her feet, which people can't really see.

If Americans were asked to describe the Statue of Liberty without looking at it, most of us could probably describe her long robe, the crown on her head, a lighted torch in her right hand and a tablet cradled in her left. Some might remember it's inscribed with the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

But there's a significant detail most of us would miss. It's a feature that points to why Lady Liberty was created and gifted to us in the first place. At her feet, where her robe drapes the ground, lay a broken shackle and chains—a symbol of the abolishment of slavery.

statue of liberty, chains, broken shackles, anti-slavery, abolitionThe Statue of Liberty bears broken shackles at her feet.Photo credit: Canva (left), Atsme (right)

Most people see the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of our welcoming immigrants and mistakenly assume that's what she was meant to represent. Indeed, the opening words of Emma Lazarus's poem engraved on a plaque at the Statue of Liberty—"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"—have long evoked images of immigrants arriving on our shores, seeking a better life in The American Dream.

But that plaque wasn't added to the statue until 1903, nearly two decades after the statue was unveiled. The original inspiration for the monument was emancipation, not immigration.

According to a Washington Post interview with historian Edward Berenson, the concept of Lady Liberty originated when French anti-slavery activist—and huge fan of the United States' Constitution—Édouard de Laboulaye organized a meeting of other French abolitionists in Versailles in June 1865, just a few months after the American Civil War ended. "They talked about the idea of creating some kind of commemorative gift that would recognize the importance of the liberation of the slaves," Berenson said.

Laboulaye enlisted a sculptor, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, to come up with ideas. One of the first models, circa 1870, had Lady Liberty holding the broken shackles and chains in her left hand. In the final iteration, her left hand wrapped around a tablet instead and the anti-slavery symbolism of the shackle and chain was moved to her feet.

Dr. Joy DeGruy, author of "Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing," often shares the story of how the chains were moved and how the shackles have been a neglected piece of Lady Liberty's history, even for those who visited the landmark. As she points out, both the shackles at her feet and the history of why they are there have been "hidden in plain sight."

Writer Robin Wright pondered in The New Yorker what Laboulaye would think of our country today. The America that found itself embroiled in yet another civil rights movement in 2020 because we still can't seem to get the whole "liberty and justice for all" thing down pat. The America that spent the century after slavery enacting laws and policies specifically designed to keep Black Americans down, followed by decades of continued social, economic and political oppression. The America that sometimes does the right thing, but only after tireless activism manages to break through a ton of resistance to changing the racism-infused status quo.

The U.S. has juggled dichotomies and hypocrisies in our national identity from the very beginning. The same founding father who declared "that all men are created equal" enslaved more than 600 human beings in his lifetime. The same people who celebrated religious freedom forced their Christian faith on Native peoples. Our most celebrated history of "liberty" and "freedom" is inseparable from our country's violent subjugation of entire races and ethnicities, and yet we compartmentalize rather than acknowledge that two things can be equally true at the same time.

declaration of independence, founding fathers, u.s. history, american revolutionThe signing of the Declaration of IndependenceJohn Trumbull

Every nation on earth has problematic history, but what makes the U.S. different is that our problematic history is also our proudest history. Our nation was founded during the heyday of the transatlantic slave trade on land that was already occupied. The profound and world-changing document on which our government was built is the same document that was used to legally protect and excuse the enslavement of Black people. The house in which the President of the United States sits today was built partially by enslaved people. The deadliest war we've ever fought was over the "right" to enslave Black people.

The truth is that blatant, violent racism was institutionalized from the very beginning of this country. For most of us, that truth has always been treated as a footnote rather than a feature in our history educations. Until we really reckon with the full truth of our history—which it seems like we are finally starting to do—we won't ever get to see the full measure of what our country could be.

statue of liberty, american history, abolition, u.s. symbolismThe Statue of Liberty symbolizes American freedom and liberty that we're still grappling with.Photo credit: Canva

In some ways, the evolution of the design of the Statue of Liberty—the moving of the broken shackle and chain from her hands to being half hidden beneath her robe, as well as the movement of our perception of her symbolism from abolition to immigration—is representative of how we've chosen to portray ourselves as a nation. We want people to think: Hey, look at our Declaration of Independence! See how we welcome immigrants! We're so great! (Oh, by the way, hereditary, race-based chattel slavery was a thing for longer than emancipation has been on our soil. And then there was the 100 years of Jim Crow. Not to mention how we've broken every promise made to Native Americans. And honestly, we haven't even been that nice to immigrants either). But look, independence and a nod to immigration! We're so great!

The thing is that we can be so great. The foundation of true liberty and justice for all, even with all its cracks, is still there. The vision in our founding documents was truly revolutionary. We just have to decide to actually build the country we claim to have built—one that truly lives up to the values and ideals it professes for all people.

This article first appeared five years ago and has been updated.

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Teachers

Teacher uses students' descriptive writing to make PB&J sandwiches with hilarious accuracy

That's one way to teach the importance of descriptive writing.

Photo credit: Canva

Teacher's messy descriptive writing lesson goes viral

Descriptive writing is important, even if you have no plans to become a bestselling novelist. When you're tasked with writing instructions for a new employee or even for the babysitter while you take a much needed night out, having a firm grasp of descriptive writing comes in handy. It only takes one time reading Amelia Bedelia to see why accurately describing things can make things a little easier.

Kay Sloan is a first and second grade looping teacher, meaning she stays with the same students through both grades. Recently she gave the kids a descriptive writing assignment where they needed to tell her how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. To demonstrate how well they did on their descriptive writing, Sloan used their assignment as directions. But instead of inferring what the students meant and filling in the blanks with her own knowledge, she made the sandwiches as literally as possible following the descriptions given.

Peanut Butter And Jelly GIF by EvaGiphy

It was immediately clear to the students that she was making the sandwich wrong. The first paper must've read to get bread, put jelly on one side and peanut butter on the other side because Sloan takes an unopened loaf of bread, globs jelly on top of the plastic wrapping then flips the unopened loaf over to smear peanut butter on the other side. Shouts and giggles can be heard while the teacher tries to keep it together.

In a later clip she's smearing the sandwich fillings on her arms as the kids squeal in the background. At this point it's probably safe to say that the children likely think their teacher as essentially lost her mind. Surely there's a student watching this occur wondering if they should go get another adult.

journey of allen strange nicksplat GIFGiphy

Of course she explains what she's doing before she starts just slopping jelly all over the nearest desk but it still doesn't stop her students from being confused. One paper simply says "you get bread. You get peanut butter and you get jelly." There were no further instructions so she stood with all the ingredients in her arms asking if she succeeded in making a sandwich.

While still sporting her peanut butter and jelly covered arms, she brings home the lesson, "so we just did a whole lesson on adding detail to our writing. Do we understand why you have to have detail? Did anybody ever mention a plate or a knife? Did we even use these? All I did was exactly what you told me to do. So do we see how important it is to include all of the correct steps?"

@kay_sloan MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE LESSON AS A TEACHER🥪🥜🪼 #informativewriting #descriptivewriting #writinglesson #teachertok #pbandj #teachersoftiktok #elementaryteacher #elementaryschool #firstgradeteacher #primaryschoolteacher #justteacherthings #teacherlife ♬ original sound - kay_sloan

That's certainly one way to get a lesson to stick, quite literally. Commenters love the teacher's dedication to the lesson, with one writing, "THIS. IS. A. TEACHER. They truly don’t pay you enough."

Another praises, "Honey you taught the heck out of that lesson!! They’ll never forget the details that are necessary for descriptive writing!!"

"Descriptive writing! They’ll Remeber this for sure!!! Success!" someone else says.

Episode 14 Terri Mackleberry GIF by The SimpsonsGiphy

"Imagine those kids going home and trying to explain this to their parents," another commenter laughs.

"I work in management at an assembly plant. We did this same exercise to demonstrate the importance of details in each job instruction sheet. A room full of adults all had these same reactions lmao" someone else chimes in.

"This is actually a great way to teach kids about writing code. Computers are just electronic Amelia Bedelia," one person shares.

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Education

In the early 80s, there was one SAT question that was literally impossible to answer

Everyone got it wrong and it wasn't their fault.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Teenager is baffled.

As if the SAT didn't already have a less-than-stellar reputation in terms of racial bias and the possible inability to truly measure a student's cognitive abilities, now a story about an expensive blunder is once again making the rounds on social media. Back in 1982, one math question on the test was completely impossible to answer on the multiple-choice Scantron. How was that possible? Because the correct answer hadn't even been listed.

Pencil, SAT test, Scantron, testing, SATsClassic SAT test. Photo by Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu on Unsplash

Here was the question: Picture two circles, a large one marked B and a smaller one next to it with an arrow, marked A. "In the figure above, the radius of Circle A is 1/3 the radius of Circle B. Starting from the position shown in the figure, Circle A rolls around Circle B. At the end of how many revolutions of Circle A will the center of the circle first reach its starting point?" Is it A, 3/2; B, three; C, six; D, 9/2; or E, nine?

On the Veritasium YouTube page, they explain that if you were to look at the problem logically, you'd conclude the answer was B, three. Because the circumference of a circle is 2πr, and the radius of Circle B is three times that of Circle A, "logically it should take three full rotations of Circle A to roll around." However, that answer is wrong.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

In Jack Murtagh's piece "The SAT Problem that Everyone Got Wrong" for Scientific American, he conveys it all came down to the Coin Rotation Paradox (take note of this if you want to sound super intelligent on your next date or job interview).

You can try this yourself. Murtagh writes, "Here's how the paradox works: Place two quarters flat on a table so that they are touching. Holding one coin stationary on the table, roll the other quarter around it, keeping edge contact between the two without slipping. When the moving quarter returns to its starting location, how many full rotations has it made?"

Again, most test takers assumed that the answer was three. But "in fact, Circle A makes four rotations on its trip—again, exactly one more rotation than intuition expects. The paradox was so far from the test writers’ awareness that four wasn’t offered as an option among the possible answers, so even the most astute students were forced to submit a wrong response."

Why in fact was this the case? On the Scientific American YouTube page, it's explained again: "If you replace the larger circle with a straight line of the same length, then the smaller circle would indeed make three rotations. Somehow the circular path creates an extra rotation. And to see why, just imagine rotating a circle around a single point. There are two sources of rotation here. One from rolling along a path—and the longer the path is, the more rotations. And another from revolving around an object, which creates one extra rotation, no matter its size."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Okay, one more try. Here, it's relayed in terms of actual astrophysics: "This general principle extends far beyond a mathematical fun fact. In fact, it's essential in astronomy for accurate timekeeping. When we count 365 days going by in a year—365.24, to be precise—we say we're just counting how many rotations the Earth makes in one orbit around the Sun. But it's not that simple. All this counting is done from the perspective of you on Earth. To an external observer, they'll see the Earth do one extra rotation to account for its circular path around the Sun. So while we count 365.24 days in a year, they count 366.24 days in a year."

What might be equally interesting is that out of 300,000 SAT test-takers who got that question at the time, only three wrote in to the College Board to challenge the answer. Ultimately, they had to fix the test, which cost them over $100,000. (In 1982, that's at least ten Happy Meals.)

The comment section on YouTube was buzzing.

gif, wrong, reaction, reaction gif, math problemYoure Wrong John C Mcginley GIFGiphy

This person suggests following your gut, even if that does mean challenging a professor or other authority figure: "In college, I took a poetry class and once had an answer marked wrong on a test. Confident in my response, I reached out to the poet themselves, who affirmed I was right and even communicated this to my professor. Despite not being a fan of poetry, that moment made me quite proud!"

Another person commented on the reasoning behind the paradox itself: "That part about the circle rotating around the triangle was mind-blowing. You instantly understand why it's not the same if the circle rolls on a flat line or rolls on a curved line."

And for this person, it brought peace of mind: "This was the one SAT I took, and I remember the question that didn't have a correct answer, and it wasn't until today that I understood the right answer. I can die happy now."

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History (Education)

The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of welcoming immigrants. That wasn't what she was made for.

Dr. Joy DeGruy explains how Lady Liberty's oft-ignored shackles symbolize her near-forgotten origins.

Photo credit: Canva (left), Atsme (right)

Many people are not aware of the chains at the Statue of Liberty's feet, much less why they are there.

With her flowing robes, flaming torch held high, and crown radiating out to the world like a beacon of hope, the Statue of Liberty has stood as an American emblem off the coast of New York for over two centuries.

If you were to ask the average American what they think of when they think of the Statue of Liberty, many would say she's a symbol of the liberty sought by people around the world who have come to our shores to find it. As the first American sight countless immigrants saw when they arrived at Ellis Island, with her pedestal bearing the words, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…" Lady Liberty has long been synonymous with the American tradition of welcoming immigrants.

But that's not actually what she was made for.

statue of liberty, liberty island, ellis island, immigration, slaveryLady Liberty welcomes people to New York.Photo credit: Canva

French politician Édouard de Laboulaye conceived of the idea for the Statue of Liberty to be built as a gift from France to the United States in 1865, the year the U.S. Civil War ended. That timing wasn't a coincidence. Laboulaye was a staunch abolitionist and president of the French Anti-Slavery Society, and his views were central to his commissioning of the statue. The statue was to be a gift celebrating the end of slavery in the U.S., as well as the centennial of the nation's founding and a symbol of good relations between France and America. Its ties to immigration wouldn't come until decades later.

Dr. Joy Degruy, sociologist, educator, and author of "Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing," shares a story about visiting the Statue of Liberty in her book and talks. She recounted the story to Brandi Harvey on the Vault Empowers podcast, informing people—many for the first time—that the Statue of Liberty's origin story began with anti-slavery activism, not immigration.

Watch:

As Dr. DeGruy explains, the original design had Lady Liberty holding broken chains in her left hand, not the tablet we see today. Sometime between the original drawings and the final design, those chains were moved to her feet—where they aren't visible unless you are flying through the air over them—and the tablet bearing the date July 4, 1776 in Roman numerals took their place.

Exactly how and why that change was made is not entirely clear in the historical record. But the fact that it even happened has not been widely shared, even by the people giving tours of the statue and sharing her history. DeGruy asked the tour guide about the chains on a visit and went on a hunt for the historical document showing the original design.

"So we go into the basement of the Statue of Liberty," she said. "We're in the basement of the Statue of Liberty. We find the document—encased in glass, behind figurines, facing a wall in a hallway. So here we have the truth, hidden in plain sight."

In a deep dive of the written historical records we have, researcher Rebecca M. Joseph, PhD. fact-checked various myths about the statue and her findings verified her anti-slavery origins as one of two parts of Laboulaye's vision of celebrating American liberty:

"The Statue of Liberty would never have been conceived or built if its principal French and American advocates had not been active abolitionists who understood slavery as the cause of the Civil War and its end as the realization of the promise of liberty for all as codified in the Declaration of Independence. But the Statue of Liberty was not intended entirely as a monument to the end of slavery. The statue’s form after June 1871 clearly embodies Laboulaye’s views on the two-part realization, in 1776 and 1864, of his ideal of liberty. The centennial of the American Revolution was significant to the French sponsors because the Civil War ended slavery and preserved the Union at a time when the France’s future was still uncertain. For the American republicans, it was a timely opportunity to erect a monument to their efforts and worldview. Laboulaye and his French colleagues also wished to send a political message back to France. Bartholdi cast the project in the broadest terms, hoping to encourage additional commissions."

\u00c9douard Ren\u00e9 de Laboulaye, statue of liberty, anti-slaveryFrench abolitionist Édouard René de Laboulaye, who commissioned the Statue of Liberty.upload.wikimedia.org

So how did we come to associate the Statue of Liberty with immigration? That's another interesting story, as Joseph explains:

"The conventional interpretation of the statue as a monument to American immigrants is a twentieth-century phenomenon. In its early years (1871-1886), that view was only rarely and vaguely expressed, while references to the Civil War and abolition of slavery occur repeatedly from its first introduction to the United States in 1871 up to and including the dedication celebrations in 1886. Immigrants did not actually see the Statue of Liberty in large numbers until after its unveiling. In the early twentieth century, the statue became a popular symbol for nativists and white supremacists. Official use of the statue's image to appeal to immigrants only began in earnest with public efforts to Americanize immigrant children and the government’s advertising campaign for World War I bonds. The 'immigrant' interpretation gained momentum in the 1930s as Americans prepared for war with Hitler and by the 1950s, it had become the predominant understanding of the statue's original purpose and meaning."

Since DeGruy raised the issue of the exclusion of the statue's anti-slavery origins, the Statue of Liberty national monument and museum has updated its educational program to include them. For some, it might seem like a mere factual correction, but for Black Americans who visit the Statue of Liberty, De Gruy says, it could potentially change their whole relationship to her symbolism.

"When Black people walk through, you hear white people say, 'Oh well, you know, my great great, and my great great…' but Black men, women, and children feel no connection to Lady Liberty. But how much prouder would they be if they knew that their ancestors that didn't come through Ellis Island, that came chained together in the belly of ships, that she was standing on those shackles? How much prouder would those young people be?"

Dr. DeGruy shared more about how Black Americans can find healing through hidden history. You can watch the full Vault Empowers interview with her here:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

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