Knowledge is Power

This Edward Virginius Valentine racist caricature sculpture depicts a young Black boy, dressed in tattered clothes and wearing shoes that are falling apart, asleep in a chair with a book in his hands. The title of the sculpture, Knowledge is Power, is meant to imply that Black people are incapable of education. Sculpted in early 1868, it’s likely that Valentine’s caricature was a response to the opening of multiple schools for Black people in Richmond following Emancipation.