10 Park visitors suddenly see a new statue

Mount Tabor is a park in Portland. Many people visit it. They walk their dogs. They exercise. They play games. They ride their bikes. They sit on the grass.

There was a large statue near the top. It was the statue of a man. The man was Harvey Scott. He worked for a newspaper a long time ago.

Protestors pulled down the statue of Harvey Scott in 2020. People disagreed with his ideas. For example, he did not want women to vote.

Several months later, someone replaced the old statue with a new one. The new statue is the head of a man named York.

York was a Black person. He was a slave of an explorer named Clark. Lewis and Clark were two famous explorers of Oregon in the 1800s.

The new statue is four feet tall. There is a sign below the statue. The sign describes York. It says that he was the first African American to cross the continent and see the Pacific Ocean.

Who put the new statue there? Nobody knew for eight months. The artist told his name only after someone destroyed the statue.

The artist’s name is Todd McGrain. He talked to a newspaper because he wanted to replace the first York statue with a new one. The new statue would be made of bronze. It would last a long time.

The park still has not decided to say yes or no.

^{-This story was first published in ESOL News Oregon March 1, 2021.}