Push To Rid Central Park Of Memorial To Doctor Who Experimented On Slaves Grows

CENTRAL PARK, NY — A coalition of neighborhood activists and city officials from multiple boroughs rallied in front of the statue of J. Marion Sims — an Antebellum-era doctor who experimented on slave women — to call on the city to remove the statue during its 90 day study into the city's symbols of hate and oppression.

The coalition — formally named The Coalition to Remove the Dr. Sims Statue, Reclaiming the Reproductive Rights of Women of Color — was formed to call on Mayor Bill de Blasio and the 90-day commission to prioritize the study and removal of the Sims statue, Community Board 11 Chair Diane Collier said Thursday. Members of the coalition include elected officials such as City Council Members Helen Rosenthal and Inez Barron, Borough President Gale Brewer, members of community boards from all over the city, medical students and activist groups.

Every day that the statue of Sims stands on Fifth Avenue and East 105th Street is a day that the city honors the legacy of slavery and white supremacy, members of the coalition said Thursday afternoon. The placement of the statue in East Harlem, a majority black and Latino community, is especially offensive to neighborhood residents, coalition members said Thursday.

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"While some people praise Dr. Sims for his medical advances, there's nothing to be proud of here as non-anesthetized, enslaved black women were tortured and abused by his experiments," East Harlem City Council Nominee Diana Ayala said Thursday. "J. Marion Sims is a painful symbol of our nation's troubling relationship with race and with our country's insufficient efforts to right the wrongs of longstanding injustices."

City Councilwoman Rosenthal said Thursday that instead of honoring Sims with a monument the city could instead honor the enslaved women who were experimented on and made Sims' medical breakthrough's possible.

The Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments and Markers held its first meeting behind closed doors on Tuesday. Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed the body last month after plans to remove a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, Virginia caused white supremacists and anti-racist counter-protesters to clash.

The commission has yet to make public which monuments and statues they are looking at throughout the city. In August, de Blasio did acknowledge that the statue would be studied during the commission's 90 day review.

"That is obviously is one of the ones that will get very immediate attention because there’s been a tremendous concern raised about it.," de Blasio said in August.

The Coalition to Remove the Dr. Sims Statue, Reclaiming the Reproductive Rights of Women of Color will continue to meet until the statue is finally taken down, Collier said Thursday.

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