The African-American Monument
The African-American Monument.
Photo by Bob Botsch
(scroll down to the end of
the article to see more pictures)
In March of
2001, an event of note took place with the dedication of an African-American
History Monument on the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol. State
senator Darrell Jackson called it “a reflection of what can be done when
all citizens work together in unity” (Bauerlein, “There are so many things,”
2001, A1, 12). The African-American Monument, the first such structure to
be built on the grounds of a state capitol, had its genesis in a 1994 proposal
for a state Heritage Act. Republican State Senator John Courson wrote the
Heritage Act in an attempt to develop a compromise that would remove the
Confederate flag from the
State House dome. The legislation passed the state Senate but failed in the
House. Two years later the state Senate passed another piece of legislation
to create a monument, but the House refused to consider the bill. Two state
senators, Darrell Jackson, an African-American Democrat, and Glenn McConnell,
a white Republican, then tied the bill to an economic development proposal
that Governor Beasley favored. Beasley responded by calling the legislature
into special session, and the House passed both bills.
The legislature
set up a Commission to oversee the project, but its members had widely varying
views on the project and how to proceed. There was much disagreement on even
the content of the Monument’s panels. The chair of the Commission, state
senator Glenn McConnell, was a strong supporter of the Confederate flag.
One member was a legislator who had voted against the project. The vice chair,
representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter, was an advocate for the rights of African-Americans.
She was also the member often described as the moving force behind the project
(Davis, 2002). Cobb-Hunter had strong feelings about the project, stating
at one point that some commission members were trying to destroy the project.
The Monument project inevitably became entwined with the ongoing battle over
the Confederate flag, which resurfaced virtually every year. With feelings
over the flag running high and legislators unable to agree on a compromise
concerning the removal of the flag from the State House dome, Senator Jackson
at one point demanded that Senator McConnell resign from the Monument Commission
(Harris “Cobb-Hunter,” 2001, A12).
Despite the
acrimony, the project went forward. With some help from the South Carolina
Arts Commission, a volunteer Citizens’ Advisory Committee chaired by art
educator Mac Arthur Goodwin designed a prospectus. The project was advertised
in national publications. Artists from all over the country and even abroad
were eager to design the African-American Monument. More than forty artists
submitted proposals, including several South Carolinians. The Citizens’ Advisory
Committee narrowed the group down to three finalists who met with both the
African-American Monument Commission and the Citizens’ Advisory Committee.
Both groups were in accord, choosing Ed Dwight of Denver, Colorado. In the
words of one member of the Monument Commission, the quality of Dwight’s sculpture,
or his “ability to sculpt,” stood out (Davis, 2002). Dwight’s other work
includes a ten-foot tall statue of baseball player Hank Aaron in Atlanta (Crumbo,
2002, A8). The Citizens’ Advisory Committee worked with Ed Dwight on the
plan for the Monument.
In the beginning,
Ed Dwight intended to represent specific people in South Carolina’s history
in his designs, but the Commission asked that he not do so. In part this
was a political decision, intended to avoid controversy. For example, one
panel, dubbed the “conspiracy panel,” represents the activities of people
like Denmark Vesey, a controversial figure in South Carolina’s history (Bauerlein,
“Granite, bronze,” 2001, A18; Davis, 2002). Vesey was a former slave who
bought his own freedom after winning a lottery. The leader of a failed slave
revolt in 1822, he was executed after his capture. Dwight originally intended
to include a statue of Vesey, as well as a panel that showed the Ku Klux
Klan lynching blacks and burning crosses. Ultimately, Dwight was asked to
simply design panels that would symbolize various periods in history, rather
than specific persons. He also substituted words for the images of the Klan
(Bauerlein, “Granite, bronze,” 2001, A18). Pictures of these panels can be
viewed at the end of this article.
Thus, although
each of the twelve beautiful panels on the African-American Monument represents
something of significance in the experience of South Carolina’s African-Americans,
a visitor will find no words of explanation or captions under each panel.
Following a series of public hearings across the state the Monument Commission
determined that the African-American Monument would not “represent any actual
human being who actually lived” (Davis, 2002). The casual visitor may look
at a panel and think of an important historical figure like retired South
Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Ernest Finney, musician Dizzy Gillespie,
or tennis player Althea Gibson. Some of the media even reported that the
figures on the panels represent real people (Crumbo, 2001,A8). But the official
position of the Monument Commission was that the panels would not be “an
official, literal interpretation” of anyone (Davis, 2002). Each viewer should
interpret the meaning for him or herself.
The Monument was completed at a
cost of over $1.1 million, all privately raised. Schoolchildren from around
the state were among the contributors. Made of granite and bronze, it stands
two floors high and is 25 feet wide (Bauerlein, “Granite, bronze,” 2001,
A1). Ironically, the Monument is located on the east side of the state Capitol
not far from the final “home” of the Confederate flag. Legislators had eventually
agreed on a compromise to move the flag off the State House dome. They had
the flag placed on a thirty-foot pole near the Confederate Soldier Monument
in July of 2000. This mixture of symbols on the State House grounds was reflected
in the final clash among Commission members who represented the differing
views of South Carolinians. As the time for completion of the Monument approached,
Representative Cobb-Hunter played an active role, signing the last contracts,
and encouraging citizens to turn out for the dedication. However, she boycotted
the Monument ceremony in protest after Senator McConnell appointed state senator
Robert Ford, an African-American Democrat, to the Commission at the last
minute and added his name to a plaque on the Monument. McConnell said that
he was doing this to recognize the role that Ford had played in shepherding
the enabling legislation through. McConnell also praised Cobb-Hunter for
her hard work on the Monument project. Cobb-Hunter, who received some criticism
for her decision to boycott the ceremony, said that she was “standing on
principle” and that the “process was taken over by politics” (Harris “Cobb-Hunter,”
2001, A12).
Despite Cobb-Hunter’s absence,
the ceremony went on. According to the security staff at the State House,
so many people came to see the dedication that they could not all fit under
the rotunda of the Capitol (Wise, 2001, 1). More than four hundred people
watched one of the more unusual re-enactments in South Carolina. Civil War
re-enactors dressed in Union uniforms marched and African-American re-enactors
presented flags in preparation for the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Poet Nikky Finney read a poem that she had written about South Carolina’s
African-Americans for the dedication. The Hallelujah Singers performed two
spirituals as the ceremony moved indoors to avoid a cold rain (Bauerlein,
“There are so many things,” 2002, A12). Some
of those standing outside broke into song themselves, singing what has been
called the black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (Wise, 2001,
1). Many of those present and those who came later liked especially that
this monument, representing four hundred years of African-American history,
was not hidden away behind a fence or a wall. Even schoolchildren could touch
the faces on the panels or the stones at the base of the obelisk. These “rubbing
stones” come from four areas in Africa that were originally homes to the
enslaved Africans. These are Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and the Republic
of Congo (Bauerlein, “Granite, bronze,” 2001, A18; Bauerlein, “There are
so many things,” 2001, A112).
Politicians who were present took note of the
significance of the event. Governor Jim Hodges acknowledged that although
this monument has been called the first of its kind to be erected on the
grounds of a state capitol, it might more accurately be referred to as the
second. After all, the State House itself was built with the labor of the
enslaved. Senator McConnell described the Monument as “a story of achievement”
(Wise, 2001, 1).
Jesse
Washington, a Commission member and director of the State Human Affairs Commission,
expressed the hope of many that the Monument would help to lead South Carolina
into an era of improved race relations. He stated: “It is a fact that when
people have a clear understanding of the contributions that people have made,
the respect for people grows” (Bauerlein, “Granite, bronze,” 2001, A1, 18).
Shown below are pictures of the panels
on the African-American Monument, as one would view them by moving around
the Monument from left to right. The panels are chronological. Photos by Bob
Botsch. Sculptor Ed Dwight described each of the panels to a reporter for
the State Newspaper (See Bauerlein, “Granite, bronze,” 2001, A1, 8).
This panel represents the beginning of enslavement
in the early 1600s.
A man and a woman, who is holding her baby, stand
on the auction block.
This is a close-up of the inscription on the panel
above.
This panel represents the “Middle Passage,” when
Africans were
captured, then brought across the ocean to the Americas.
In this panel,
a white slave trader is beating an African, who
is in chains, as the African
leaves the boat.
This panel represents the early
days when enslaved Africans worked
in the fields to harvest indigo and rice. Only
later did cotton become a
major crop.
This panel shows several black men
planning a revolt. There were
a number of slave revolts, beginning in the early 1700s and continuing
into the 1800s.
This panel represents the African-Americans
who fought in the Civil
War. The 1st South Carolina Volunteers, organized in
1862, was the
first of three such regiments formed in the state that fought for
the Union.
Although Lincoln’s Emancipation
Proclamation had no immediate
impact on most of South Carolina’s African-Americans, since the
state was
not at that time under Union control, freedom came when Union troops
took South Carolina in 1865.This panel celebrates the joy of freedom.
Future generations visiting the
Monument will learn that it was sculpted
by Ed Dwight of Denver, Colorado.
Reconstruction was in a sense a
golden era for South Carolina’s
African-Americans. It was a time when African-American men could
vote and hold office, and when there were educational opportunities
available for black men and women. This panel represents that era,
which
ended in 1876 when Union troops withdrew from the South.
Under the 1865 Constitution, whites
passed new laws called Black Codes
that placed
restrictions on blacks. The federal government
negated these
laws, and the 1868 Constitution gave African-Americans the right
to vote
and to an education. But even during Reconstruction,
there was discrimination.
Some whites attempted to intimidate blacks with
violence. After the end of
Reconstruction, there
was a return to white rule and blacks lost most rights.
Jim Crow laws required
the separation of the races in almost all respects.
The words in the first of these
two panels show what life was like for African-Americans
in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Many African-Americans left the
South after Reconstruction and moved North,
seeking a better life. About 20,000 left between 1880 and 1900.
In the first
half of the twentieth century, about half a million
African-Americans left. The
second panel depicts this migration, as a family
prepares to leave South Carolina.
The Civil Rights era was a time
of great change. This panel depicts
some of the events of that period, including the landmark Brown
v.
Board of Education case in 1954, which led to the eventual desegregation
of public schools. Briggs v. Elliot was a South
Carolina case that began
with a lawsuit filed by parents in Clarendon County, South Carolina,
with the help of the NAACP. This was one of several cases that
were
folded into the Brown case.
South Carolina’s African-Americans
have succeeded in entering the
mainstream of American life. This panel represents their achievements
in such fields as law, music, athletics, space, and science.
On the pavement in front of the
Monument there is a
depiction of a tightly packed slave ship.
Carol Sears Botsch
Associate
Professor, USC Aiken
carolb@aiken.sc.edu
Portions of this article will
appear in a textbook chapter entitled “Minorities in South Carolina Politics,”
Charlie B. Tyer (editor), South Carolina Government: A Policy Perspective
(Columbia, SC: Institute for Public Service and Policy Research, 2003).Used
with permission.
References:
Bauerlein, Valerie. “Granite, bronze and
triumph.”The State Newspaper (March 25, 2001): A1, 18.
Bauerlein, Valerie. “There are so many
things that need to have been told.” The State Newspaper (March 30,
2001): A1, 12.
Crumbo, Chuck. “Monument draws rave reviews
from crowd.” The State Newspaper (August 31, 2001): A1, 8.
Davis, Kenneth. Member of African-American
Monument Commission. Telephone interview (June 26, 2002).
Harris, Kenneth A. “Cobb-Hunter boycotts
monument ceremony.” The State Newspaper (March 30, 2001): A12.
Wise, Warren. “Tearful crowd dedicates state’s African-American
monument.” The Post and Courier (March 30, 2001): 1.
Last updated 7/01/02
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