The city of Philadelphia has picked the winning design for a Harriet Tubman statue outside City Hall after facing criticism over its original choice of a white artist who’d been selected without competition.
Alvin Pettit beat out four other semifinalists with a design called “A Higher Power: The Call of a Freedom Fighter.” His nearly 14-foot bronze statue — the first of a Black woman who is a historical figure in the city’s public art collection — will portray Tubman as a military leader and freedom fighter.
The famed abolitionist — who escaped slavery and led other enslaved Black women and men to freedom on the Underground Railroad — worked as a scout, spy and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War, and helped lead 150 Black soldiers on a gunboat raid in South Carolina.
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