Thomas Jay Warren created the Emancipation and Freedom Monument for Richmond, Virginia. The monument consists of two figures. The man, whose shackles fall from his wrists in this bronze monument, stands 12 feet tall. The woman holds an infant and a document dated January 1, 1863, the date of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Additional portrait reliefs memorialize Virginians who fought against slavery and for equality.

Located downtown on Browns Island, a public event space along the James River, the massive monument has been a decade in the making. Despite a soaking rain, a crowd gathered for the dedication, moved by the feelings expressed by the sculpted figures.

Thomas Jay Warren has created over fifty-three public art works in twenty states and Canada. Many are portrait bronzes: from Civil Rights figures Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks and Sojourner Truth, to jazz legend John Coltrane, Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, Lakota Sioux Chief Frank Fools Crow and others. Earlier in 2021, Newark, NJ dedicated Warren’s sculpture of Dr. Martin Luther King outside the city’s new Justice Building.