Theodore Parker (1810-1860) was a Unitarian minister, reformer, and influential American thinker in the middle years of the nineteenth century. He spoke and wrote against slavery and was active in its abolition: sheltering fugitive slaves, supporting John Brown in his raid on Harper’s Ferry and defending him after his capture. A radical critic of traditional Christianity, Parker veered away from the Bible and emphasized a personal experience of the divine.

This statue, commissioned by The Boston Art Commission, never found a place on public ground. In 1902 it was given to the Theodore Parker Universalist Church, and is now displayed in its garden. The seated, life-sized bronze figure of Parker is by the sculptor Robert Kraus, whose other works in Boston include the Boston Massacre Monument on the Boston Common and the Randidge Memorial in Jamaica Plain. The statue’s granite base features allegorical female figures on bronze plaques, whose themes are “Love God/Love Man,” “Awakening,” and “Unmasking Error."