Letter-Writers To Green-Wood: 'We Do Not Want This Racist Statue'

WINDSOR TERRACE, BROOKLYN — Outraged Brooklynites are bombarding Green-Wood Cemetery with angry letters after the president announced he’d display a statue of a man who experimented on slaves.

Cemetery president Richard Moylan has received dozens of angry letters since news broke in January that a monument to Dr. J. Marion Sims — the "father of modern gynecology" who did not anesthetize his subjects because he believed "black women don't feel pain" — would be moved to Green-Wood cemetery, a spokeswoman said.

“I am horrified that Green-Wood is planning to become home to and display a statue of J. Marion Sims,” wrote organizers from Occupy Kensington, in a sample email posted on Facebook. "As Black women have been saying for years: Sims tortured Black women when he performed medical experiments on them without anesthesia or consent. Why would we celebrate this person?

"We do not need to shore up romanticism for our country's white supremacist legacy by erecting these kinds of monuments," the letter says. "We do not want this racist statue in our neighborhood."

Moylan has responded to the approximately 25 letters with an email that includes an explanation of why he accepted the statue and a promise to contextualize it with information about Sims' experimentation on slaves, according to a spokeswoman.

“The responsibility to preserve this history, and not to whitewash it, is something we take very seriously,” Moylan wrote. “Placing the sculpture at the gravesite is not meant to glorify him.”

Moylan promised to post a display near the statue, “to document Sims’ story including his deplorable experimentation on enslaved women.”

While Brooklyn resident Molly McIntyre told the Brooklyn Paper she was mollified by the promise to provide a complete history of Sims, several others remained unconvinced.

“Statues serve as markers of honor and remembrance; this one honors Sims,” wrote Tom Weinreich, “No matter how many plaques you place around it.”

The statue currently rests with city officials who, according to a cemetery spokeswoman, will decide whether or not the statue is moved to Green-Wood.

Photo courtesy of Spencer Platt/Getty Images