Push to Make Confederate Statue In Hemming Permanent
(https://photos.smugmug.com/History/Downtown-1980s/i-pCfdZ2t/0/XL/Hemming%20Plaza-XL.jpg)
A few weeks ago, legislation was demanded (and then proposed) to secure 'historic landmark' status for Hemming Park, specifically to prevent any future discussion of removing the Confederate Monument from the Government district. The measure will be discussed this Wednesday in front of the Historic Preservation Commission, to little fanfare and almost no public notice. The legislation is specifically formulated to make moving the confederate statue nearly impossible, and due to the almost silent progress of the bill, no opposing points of view have been registered. Find out more after the jump.
Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2016-jul-push-to-make-confederate-statue-in-hemming-permanent
No issues here. The statue certainly is a historic landmark, and was virtually the only thing in Hemming Park to survive the great fire. I also think that people in the city view it as such, rather than as an overtly racist relic of the past. Long-term though, it would be great to see a second statue added celebrating the city's diversity. James Weldon Johnson sounds like a great pic to me.
I don't have much love for Confederate monuments and symbols, but I dislike removing public art and historical monuments even more. I think it's also important to look at monuments individually as the context of how and when they were built can be just as important as the thing they commemorate.
Earlier monuments marked battles or important sites, or commemorated soldiers from a particular places. Even in the South there were monuments to both Confederate and Union troops (in Florida, there are several Union monuments that came even after Reconstruction ended). In this spirit, Jacksonville got its first Civil War monument in 1891, the Evergreen Cemetery statue erected by the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) in Evergreen Cemetery. It contains inscriptions including "In memory of our comrades who defended the flag of the Union on land and sea, 1861-1865."
Confederate monuments mushroomed after Reconstruction and got more and more abstract and worshipful of the Confederacy the farther they got from the war. Memorials became less about specific soldiers from specific places to lionizing the Confederacy and promoting the idea that the Civil War was a laudable "Lost Cause". In 1932, Charleston's Battery got an over-the-top statue of a nude soldier heroically defending a goddess from attack, with the inscription, "To the Confederate defenders of Charleston - Fort Sumter 1861-1865". This obscures Charleston's role as the place where rebel forces started the war by *attacking* Fort Sumter. We've got less of that in Jacksonville, but the trend can be seen in the "Attribute to the Women of the Southern Confederacy" in Confederate Park (http://www.flpublicarchaeology.org/civilwar/monuments/jacksonville-evergreen-cemetery/confederate-park) from 1915, and the marker "dedicated to the memory of Confederate soldiers who defended Jacksonville" at Yellow Bluff Fort (http://www.flpublicarchaeology.org/civilwar/zp-core/full-image.php?a=monuments%2Fjacksonville-evergreen-cemetery%2Fyellow-bluff-fort&i=monument-front.jpg&q=75&wmk=FPAN%20logo-white-outlined) from 1950. Yellow Bluff Fort was actually used by both Confederate and Union troops (as the inscription notes later), and Jacksonville was not "defended" successfully by the Confederates, as US forces occupied it 4 different times without a battle.
Dedicated in 1898, the Hemming Park monument is more in line with the early style of monuments. While it does mention the "deeds immortal" and "heroism unsurpassed" of the soldiers, it's primarily just a memorial to Floridians who served in the Confederate military. The statue at the top is of a soldier of the Jacksonville Light Infantry, and there are reliefs of area soldiers Edmund Kirby Smith and J. J. Dickinson. It doesn't have nearly so much of the "Lost Cause" trappings or the racial and anti-Union messaging of some other monuments; in fact, it contains the inscription "God Bless Our Country", here referring to the USA.
Other cities that have moved or removed Confederate monuments often don't give much thought to what to replace them with. Jax already has a reputation as a place that's quick with the bulldozer and we've lost a lot of landmarks that way. Tomorrow it could be the Hemming Park monument, but by far the worst of the demolition and erasure has happened in our historically black and urban neighborhoods. We demolished James Weldon Johnson's house, Zora Neale Hurston's family flower shop, and many significant structures in and near Downtown.
This is the main reason I'd rather see us devote the energy and money we'd use for removal toward adding something instead. The Union monument deserves to be better seen and known, and it's already due for some refurbishing. It's a perfect counterpoint to the Confederate monument, especially if we added dedications to the black Union troops who served here. That would say a lot more than just removing the old monument and forgetting about it all.
Quote from: KenFSU on July 26, 2016, 02:18:00 PM
No issues here. The statue certainly is a historic landmark, and was virtually the only thing in Hemming Park to survive the great fire. I also think that people in the city view it as such, rather than as an overtly racist relic of the past. Long-term though, it would be great to see a second statue added celebrating the city's diversity. James Weldon Johnson sounds like a great pic to me.
Along with the Union monument and a new monument to the Timucua chief Saturiwa, a monument to James Weldon Johnson is in the top 3 of my long-term public art wish list. Johnson deserves something a lot more elaborate than I think could be done as easily and quickly as Hemming Park could use, however. My thought is something along the lines of Augusta Savage's proposed "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing (The Harp)", which was designed and constructed in plaster for the 1939 World's Fair, but never completed due to lack of funds to cast it in bronze. The miniature is at the Cummer for the LIFT exhibit, and pictures still exist. A contemporary sculptor's take on this idea or a similar one incorporating Johnson himself could make for a great icon for Downtown Jacksonville.
(http://artcuratorforkids.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Augusta-Savage-The-Harp.jpg)
I'm a 6th generation native and honestly have grown weary of the demolition and revisionism in our city.
I grew up listening to stories of my father's childhood .... of learning to play chess in Hemming Plaza after school while he waited on his parents to close up their store. I know what an even more important role the park played historically in the fabric of our downtown community through his stories and those of extended family.
Honestly, the confederate monument in Hemming is more in the way of a community memorializing their fallen sons than that of a political ideology. Is it really that different than the monument in Memorial Park for veterans of the World War or the Union Monument in Evergreen. Can't we all admit that as monuments go this one is fairly innocuous? I'm not sure I see the need for another monument reflecting the other side but I can support more public art ... always have.
Sometimes memorializing the sacrifice and loss of members of the community is just that ... even if on the wrong side of history. Don't we have more important things to worry about. With the current logic, I'm surprised there hasn't been a movement to change the names of Jefferson and Davis Streets.
I had the fortunate experience of touring our nations capital last week.
What made it unique is that in the old House Chamber is where the statues are being kept until the rotunda construction is complete.
On one side is a statue of Jefferson Davis, the American & former CSA President. On the other side is Rosa Parks.
Guess who got more attention (at least when my tour came through?)
Rosa Parks.
My son didn't know who Jefferson Davis was, but he sure knew who Rosa Parks was. 2 rebels with a cause, both very different.
When the apartheid government came to an end in South Africa there was a fear that many of the monuments put up by the historical Boers would be desecrated or destroyed. Nelson Mandela wouldn't allow it. Did a few things get renamed, yes, all public spaces.
What did they do? They set up a commission to determine which monuments had public value, and which ones were valuable to specific groups. Several of the Boer monuments not found to be of public value were placed into a historical trust. That trust has to raise their own funds to maintain those monuments in perpetuity. The ones the trust can't support are turned back over to the National Parks Commission and they will decide if they will keep it or remove it.
It worked just great. The Boers are happy as the new government provided a chance to let them work it out, and the public was OK with it, because they didn't have to foot the bill for something they didn't agree with.
Why can't we do the same?
If Nelson Mandela can foster reconciliation under those circumstances, why can't we?
When Abraham Lincoln first arrived in post-war Richmond, the request he made to the band there was to play "Dixie", not "Hail Columbia".
We are much smarter than to let old issues impede our ability to recognize our history, no matter how ugly it might be.
Quote from: spuwho on July 26, 2016, 07:48:36 PM
We are much smarter than to let old issues impede our ability to recognize our history, no matter how ugly it might be.
+1
Didn't Pat Lockett Felder put a statue bust on display of herself in a park downtown?