Some asked, 'Does Chattanooga need a lynching memorial?'
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Saturday, November 9, 2024


Some asked, 'Does Chattanooga need a lynching memorial?'
Bronze figures representing lynching victim Ed Johnson, left, and his attorneys Noah Parden, center, and Styles Hutchins, in Chattanooga, Tenn., Sept. 16, 2021. A public work by artist Jerome Meadows that memorializes Black victims of lynching will be permanently displayed in a bustling section of Chattanooga, a majority-white, Southern city with a dark history of racial violence. Wulf Bradley/The New York Times.

by Chris Moody



CHATTANOOGA, TENN.- In 2018, Georgia-based artist Jerome Meadows was selected for a formidable project: a work of public art memorializing Black victims of lynching for permanent display in a bustling section of Chattanooga, a majority-white, Southern city with a dark history of racial violence.

The memorial, to be unveiled this weekend, specifically honors Ed Johnson, a Black man who was hanged from the city’s Walnut Street Bridge by a lynch mob in 1906.

Johnson had been wrongfully convicted of raping a white woman and sentenced to death. After the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a stay of his execution, a mob broke into Johnson’s cell and hanged him from the nearby bridge.

Johnson’s murder led to the first and only criminal trial in the history of the Supreme Court. The court found six white men, including Hamilton County Sheriff Joseph F. Shipp, guilty of contempt of court. Johnson’s name was cleared by a Hamilton County court in 2000, nearly a century after his death.

Meadows’ work features a bronze statue of Johnson, who stands with attorneys Noah Parden and Styles Hutchins, Black men who risked their livelihoods to appeal his conviction. Johnson appears to be in motion, walking away from the site of his murder. A noose lies beneath his feet. Along a slope that descends toward the Tennessee River, Meadows has fashioned silhouettes of figures that represent other Black men who were lynched in Hamilton County. Commissioned by a Tennessee organization called the Ed Johnson Project, the work was completed in collaboration with Knoxville, Tennessee-based landscape architecture firm Ross/Fowler. (South Carolina-based artists Jan Chenoweth and Roger Halligan also contributed to the project’s design.)

Efforts to secure approval and public funding for the memorial after the Ed Johnson Project formed in 2016 initially faced some resistance from residents and community leaders who didn’t think it was necessary to display the city’s shameful past in such a prominent place. Members of the Hamilton County Commission ultimately voted to spend $100,000 on the project. The city of Chattanooga and scores of private donors also contributed funding.

By the end of the 20th century, memories of the atrocity had faded, particularly among white Chattanoogans. The bridge was refurbished as a pedestrian path in 1993 and today is considered a gem of the growing city, a popular place for wedding proposals and family photos.

The Ed Johnson Memorial, mere feet from the location of the lynching, seeks to bring the history to light.

Meadows, a New York City-born artist who has worked from his studio in Savannah, Georgia, since 1997, attended the Rhode Island School of Design and holds an MFA degree from the University of Maryland. With landscape architect Roberta Woodburn, he also designed the African Burying Ground Memorial Park in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Recently he spoke about his new work in Chattanooga and the challenges he faced to complete it.

Q: How do you expect people will respond to this memorial?

A: From the beginning, there were some people who didn’t feel this memorial should be created. They didn’t feel it should be created in that location, because that walking bridge is this positive experience. Why do you want to create something that speaks to such a somber event? But then I heard there were actually members of the African American community who questioned whether or not this should happen. Why do we want to revisit these things? Maybe it’s because I’m from New York, I was prepared for pushback. But that never happened. We need to make it known citywide that this is something that’s believed in, is positive, and it will be embraced by the city.




Q: As an artist who has designed other pieces for public spaces throughout the country, can you say what makes a monument worthy of public art?

A: By its very nature, public art is a cultural weapon. It’s best served by being on a level that people feel they can relate to it. I take issue, in terms of my own work, with the very term of “monument.” Monuments are people — white, mostly — up on pedestals. Whether they’re white or Black or whatever, that removes them from human existence. Ed Johnson and his lawyers are right there on ground level. You walk up to them. You walk among them.

Q: How is your own personal style reflected in this memorial?

A: I prefer artwork that is more poetic than prose, that engages you to draw from yourself, but forms that challenge you to think, What is that supposed to be? Ed’s arms are a bit exaggerated because he was a laborer. Noah (Parden), who went up to Washington, is standing like a warrior. He’s looking at the bridge so his vision is fixed. Noah is courage. Styles (Hutchins) is compassion. He’s reaching, except for the fact that he couldn’t hold on to Ed.

Q: When you first designed Johnson’s statue, no one knew what he looked like. What did you want his face to convey?

A: Ed’s visage was the most challenging part of this entire project. He made it easy in one sense because you read the story and you know what he’s going through. As I’m looking to construct his face, I’m struggling with my own anger. But I realized I could not simply turn him into an angry Black man. If you project anger forward in terms of discourse and interaction, it’s just going to create more chaos. But if you project dignity forward, that’s what enabled these individuals to survive all of that horror, all of that mistreatment. His eyes are rising above the situation. He’s elevated above all this. The noose is a hot spot when it comes to the question of racial injustice. I would hope that would trigger a conversation that would ask for some degree, if not of accountability, perspective.

Q: After you began, a photograph of Johnson did emerge. Did you feel under pressure to change the work?

A: I’m less concerned about whether he looked like Denzel Washington or my Uncle Joe, and more with what his attitude is. For this young man to stand before this ravenous mob who’s insisting that he admit guilt, and say, “May God bless you all. I am an innocent man.” There’s a story that transcends specific physical details. That’s what I was working on in my studio, and all the sudden this photograph shows up. Half his face you can’t even see. As far as I’m concerned, that photograph is dubious at best. I believe I have accomplished Ed Johnson — not only in his face, but also his posture. He’s walking away from that experience. His hand is extended forward so you can take his hand and have a sense of being with him.

Q: The Ed Johnson Memorial will be unveiled as communities in the South are tearing down old monuments to the Confederacy. How do you feel about this moment of racial and historical reckoning?

A: Those monuments to Confederates were not devised, developed or sanctioned in the same manner that Ed Johnson’s was. You’ve got a diverse cross section of a community coming together and deciding, “This is worthy.” One of the things I do find unacceptable is to see the mob defacing public art. At some point a mob mentality might decide that Ed Johnson is unacceptable. If we’re able to deface or tear down one culture’s idea of symbolism, then what’s to stop a different group from feeling they have the right to do the same thing? I would prefer to see what’s happening in Richmond, Virginia, where it was understood that the cultural meaning of these monuments was offensive and politically it was determined that it should be removed. The difference is between a crane lifting it as opposed to ropes pulling it down and kicking it into the river.

Q: Do you think it’s important that this work was designed by an American Black artist?

A: Yes. It seems as if there was this calling in my upbringing and the environments in which I lived that really set me on this trajectory. I’ve witnessed police brutality. I witnessed a young Black man handcuffed on the ground get shot in the late ’70s. I’ve lived in an environment where that hopelessness runs rampant. If you don’t have those (in your life) maybe the emotional or psychological connection isn’t as deep.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

September 19, 2021

Fashion returns to the museum

James Cohan opens an exhibition of new work by Alison Elizabeth Taylor

Some asked, 'Does Chattanooga need a lynching memorial?'

Jessica Silverman announces representation of Rashaad Newsome

Christie's announces Fall Sales of Photographs, Prints and Multiples from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

CowParade NYC 2021 auction officially launches online with Heritage Auctions

Gagosian opens Memorial, an exhibition of new paintings by John Currin

National Book Awards announces its 2021 nominees

Notre-Dame de Paris finally ready for restoration

Memorial along National Mall offers stark reminder of virus's toll

Fred R. Kline, "art explorer," who placed lost works in museums, dies at 81

Church in former IS Iraqi stronghold gets new bell

Peter Blum Gallery opens an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by John Zurier

An eerie, thrilling trip to the Toronto International Film Festival

Ralph Irizarry, innovative Latin percussionist, dies at 67

Review: A choreographer's of-the-moment brand of 'not knowing'

Exhibition explores the complex relationship between space and the sensory

Gallery FUMI opens a new space with a new show

Spanish film director Mario Camus dies aged 86

Exhibition presents a boundary-pushing exploration of the most urgent global issues of our time

Mickalene Thomas debuts ten large-scale paintings at Lévy Gorvy

Bruneau & Co. Auctioneers announces highlights included in the Estate Fine Art & Antique Auction

Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst opens the exhibition 'Playful Geometry'

'Buena Vista Social Club' at 25: Memories of memories

Wrapped Arc de Triomphe is Christo's fleeting gift to Paris

King's Cross becomes London Design Festival's hottest district for design, innovation, culture and creativity

Cooking Clash: The Cooking Game That Can Pay You For Playing It

Zalety kasyna z minimalną wpłatą




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful