Bronze bust of Frederick Douglass unveiled at the Massachusetts State House

On Wednesday, a bronze bust of Frederick Douglass was unveiled in the Massachusetts Senate chamber. It is the first state-commissioned bust of a Black person to grace the State House.

The idea for a bust of Douglass originated in 2019, when the Senate underwent renovations. The chamber’s collection of busts, which include likenesses of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln, were removed while the room was under construction. Senate President Karen Spilka vowed to add a bust of a woman and a person of color to join the other sculptures when they were returned to the chamber’s alcoves.

“I left two [alcoves] vacant, because I know human nature: You put something in ‘temporarily’ – and I put quotes around that word – you think it's only for a few years,” Spilka said in an interview before the unveiling ceremony. “Thirty, 40, 50 years or more later, it's still there.”

When the Senate moved back into the renovated chamber, it voted to put a quote from Douglass on the wall: “Truth, justice, liberty and humanity will ultimately prevail.”

“When I’m on the rostrum and I look up, that is the first thing I see,” Spilka said. “It sort of acts as an umbrella for our actions, in a way. All the bills that we pass, the policy debates that we have: truth, justice, liberty and humanity will ultimately prevail.”

Douglass was chosen in part because of his connections to Massachusetts. The orator, activist and writer settled in New Bedford after escaping enslavement in 1838. He later lived in Lynn, which is where he penned his most famous autobiography, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.” He was reportedly mere blocks away from the State House, at the Tremont Temple, when he heard the news of the Emancipation Proclamation.

At a ceremony unveiling the bust, Douglass was celebrated for his contributions to abolition and civil rights – as well as his support of women’s suffrage.

“It is fitting that this unveiling takes place today … in a city with a woman mayor, in a state with a woman governor and a woman lieutenant governor, and a woman as president of the senate,” Dr. Noelle Trent, president of the Museum of African American History, said in a speech.

The statue was commissioned in 2023 by the State House Art Commission. It is a replica of a sculpture by the late artist Lloyd Lillie and the first bust to be added to the chamber since 1898.

One alcove in the chamber remains bereft of a bust. Spilka plans to convene another committee to select a woman to occupy it.

“I have some ideas,” Spilka said. “But I want to hear from other senators, and I’m looking forward to filling that spot as well.”