Marble sculpture honors early civil rights advocate

MIDDLEBURY | A new, larger-than-life sculpture featured along the Rutland Sculpture Trail is honoring a Vermonter many of us have never heard about, at least until now. The object of this new native-marble sculpture is one of America's first civil-rights advocates. The man rendered for the ages in stone was also the first Black college president in the USA. Now it's time to introduce and celebrate Martin Henry Freeman, a Rutland native. Born in 1826, Freeman lived on Main Street in downtown Rutland. It was a year at the dawn of the Industrial Age, some 20 years before the first Vermont railroad was constructed, and a year when slavery (the legacy of British colonialism) still blighted the young United States. During the decade of Freeman's childhood, the Missouri Compromise became the law of the land; it admitted Maine as a free state (seceding from Massachusetts) and Missouri as a slave state. Also, the Land Act of 1820 reduced the price of land in the vast Missouri Territory and it encouraged more than a few Vermonters to pack up and head west via ox-driven wagons. However, untouched by an urge to move west through the 1840s, Freeman attended Middlebury College and graduated with the class of 1849 as a salutatorian, the first Black American, as far as we know, to achieve the distinction. After leaving Middlebury, Freeman became an ardent abolitionist and passionate advocate for the education of his race. According to Steve Costello of Rutland, Freeman was the grandson of a slave who earned his freedom by fighting in the Revolutionary War. "Freeman later became president of the Allegheny Institute, later known as Avery College, in Pennsylvania," Costello noted. "Despite his professional success, Freeman grew disillusioned by Civil War-era America and was convinced that Black men and women would never be treated as equals in this country. He became a leading advocate to encourage former slaves to return to Africa for a greater chance at self-determination, and he eventually emigrated to Africa himself, where he became a professor, and later president, at Liberia College until his death in 1889." The new, magnificent Freeman sculpture, made of marble donated by Vermont Quarries in Danby, was designed by Massachusetts artist Mark Burnett and carved by West Rutland artist Don Ramey. This larger-than-life piece will be unveiled at the Center Street Marketplace in downtown Rutland on Friday, Nov. 20, at noon. The public is invited to attend the outdoor event but masks are required while maintaining social distancing during the dedication ceremony. Costello noted that the sculpture was funded by the Wakefield family, Jennifer and Fred Bagley, and Donald Billings and Sara Pratt. It is the eighth work on the Rutland Sculpture Trail that has been sculpted by the West Rutland Carving Studio. Also involved in the project are Green Mountain Power, MKF Properties, and Vermont Quarries.

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Marble sculpture honors early civil rights advocate

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