Dorris Keeven-Franke on Archer Alexander: The Monuments Unknown Hero

Archer Alexander was the model for the figure of the rising freedman with Lincoln on the "Emancipation Memorial" statue in Lincoln Park (DC).  Historian and Lincoln Group member Keeven-Franke has researched Alexander's extraordinary life, who, after escaping slavery and overcoming the last enforcement efforts for the Fugitive Slave Act, eventually found his way into the sculptor's classical motif vision.  Dorris is the author of several books on Missouri history, a  professional genealogist with over forty years of experience and a  professional archivist. Her research on Archer’s story has taken her from Missouri to Virginia and Washington, DC.  She is working with Alexander's descendents from whom she learned that their number includes champion boxer, Muhammad Ali.  Dorris is the Executive Director of the Missouri Germans Consortium.   (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP, in the New Republic, July 2020).