By: DEBRA GERSH HERNANDEZ
Eight real-life examples of the struggle for freedom are now part of Freedom Park in Arlington, Va.
PIECES OF THE Berlin Wall, a toppled statue of Lenin, suffragette banners and other "Icons of Freedom" are now in place at Freedom Park, a 1.6-acre revamped overpass running between the Freedom Forum World Center and the USA Today building in Arlington, Va.
The $4 million cooperative venture between Freedom Forum and its landlord, Westfield Realty Co., includes the spiraling glass journalists' memorial (E&P, June 8, p. 12) and eight real-life examples of the struggle for freedom. The park is adjacent to and part of the under-construction Newseum, slated to open in 1997.
Included in the exhibit are: three 12-foot-high sections of the Berlin Wall, which came down in 1989; a toppled, headless statue of communist leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, one of many pushed over and beheaded in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed; cobblestones from Poland's Warsaw Ghetto, where Jews were segregated until they rose up against their Nazi oppressors in 1943 and 14,000 Jews died; and a bronze casting of a South African ballot box used in the 1994 election when blacks were allowed to vote for the first time and Nelson Mandela was elected president.
Also: a replica of a tin boat used by two Cuban refugees in 1966 to flee for the United States; a bronze casting of the Birmingham, Ala., jail cell door behind which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was imprisoned after leading a nonviolent civil rights protest (the door is mounted on a concrete slab the same size as the cell); replicas of banners used during the 1848-to-1920 struggle for women's right to vote; and
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here