A statue of Dr. James Marion Sims is being removed on Tuesday from Central Park. The decision was approved by New York City’s Public Design Commission after Mayor Bill de Blasio created the task force following protests across the country over Confederate statues.
The city will relocate the statue, erected in 1894, to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, where Sims is buried, according to the mayor’s office.
The design commission on Monday voted unanimously, 7-0, to move the statue.
Sims was a surgeon in the 19th century who conducted experiments on women, usually women of color and mostly enslaved black women.
Sims is also looked at in the medical field as a pioneer in the practice of gynecology. One of the plaques next to his statue in Central Park read, “His brilliant achievement carried the fame of American surgery throughout the entire world.”
