Cancel Abraham Lincoln? San Francisco grapples with the president’s legacy
The statue sat like a red stain on the lawn in front of San Francisco City Hall. Abraham Lincoln’s chiseled face was covered in paint, his etched name highlighted in the bloody color at the base of the monument.
As San Francisco, like many parts of the country, grapples with how best to memorialize historic figures, the statue of the 16th president sat red-faced — literally — in front of the government building the day after Christmas.
City workers cleaned the sculpted artwork on Monday, said San Francisco County sheriff’s director of communications Nancy Hayden Crowley.
“The damage to the statue was superficial,” Crowley wrote in an email. “President Lincoln has been restored.”