Park space honoring Confederacy rededicated to Harriet Tubman in Baltimore

More than six months after a statue of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson was removed from a Baltimore park, about 200 residents and elected officials gathered to rededicate the space to abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman.

The Saturday ceremony in Wyman Park Dell, on the 105th anniversary of Tubman’s death, happened only a few feet from the bare pedestal where a large, bronze statue of Lee and Jackson riding horses once stood. The space will now be called Harriet Tubman Grove.

“We stand on the shoulders of this great woman,” Ernestine Jones-Williams, 71, a descendant of the iconic civil rights leader who spoke on behalf of the family, said, reports the Baltimore Sun. “We are overwhelmed. Overwhelmed. Thank you, and God bless you.”

The statue had stood in the park since 1948, but was removed in August amid a national debate and protests over Confederate monuments and symbols, and how they are viewed. Many people see them as offensive reminders of slavery and racism -- while others consider them a part of their Southern heritage.

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