ABSTRACT
There are two statues in Macon County, Alabama: the first is an old Confederate War Monument, situated on the town square in central Tuskegee, surrounded by the major commercial district of the county. The second, at a distance of less than two miles from the center of town, is located on the campus of Tuskegee Institute, in the shadow of the new college chapel. Beneath several impressive, spreading ferns stands the statue of Booker T. Washington, the famous black educator, lifting the veil of ignorance from the face of a black slave. It is of this famous yet ambiguous statue that Ralph Ellison wrote poignantly that it was impossible to tell whether the veil was being lifted or being lowered.1
