The book's author says statues of Black Americans are pieces of evidence, that show what society values at a given moment in history.
A new book dives into the stories behind 30 monuments and statues commemorating Black Americans around New York City.
David Felsen is an 11th grade history teacher in Chelsea, and the author of "New York City Monuments of Black Americans." He told WNYC's Michael Hill that these statues are a depiction of what society values at any given point in time, and as such help catalogue how those values change over time.
The first statue of a Black person in New York City appeared in 1876 at the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. It's a nameless figure who commemorates Civil War soldiers. Booker T. Washington in 1945 became the first identifiable Black American honored in a city monument. The city didn't have a statue dedicated to a Black woman, however, until 2008, when a bronze figure of Harriet Tubman was erected in a traffic triangle in Harlem.