Disputed Columbus statue is replaced with an abolitionist memorial.

A sculpture featuring Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman was unveiled in Newark, New Jersey on Thursday. Titled 'Shadow of a Face', the two-part monument celebrates Tubman's "compassion, courage, bravery, service to others, patriotism, and her commitment to family, faith, fortitude, and freedom." It includes a gray stone wall with Tubman's face in relief, an inner wall of steel panels engraved with information about her life, the Underground Railroad, civil rights activism in Newark, and black liberation, and an audio component featuring locals sharing their "stor[ies] of personal liberation." Behind the stone piece rises a 25-foot wire outline of a woman with thick ropes trailing off behind the sculpture. Nina Cooke John, the monument's designer, said the design was meant to connect "current-day Newark stories" with that of the abolitionist heroine, whom she called "not very well known." Tubman escaped slavery in the early 1800s and returned south on more than a dozen perilous trips in the decade before the Civil War to help others reach freedom.
In 2020, the city of Newark removed a statue of Christopher Columbus from Washington Park to protect it from vandalism. Mayor Ras Baraka later admitted the statue's removal was part of a "movement to remove symbols of oppression and white supremacy," outraging Italian-American groups. Tubman is slated to replace former President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, making her the first black person and first woman to appear on American paper currency.