Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, your favorite podcast
Speaker 2: for a daily dose of dystopia. I am once again
Speaker 2: you're a guest host Molly Conger. Today, I'm talking to
Speaker 2: a good friend of mine in one of the brilliant
Speaker 2: minds behind the melting of Charlottesville's Roberty Lee statue, Doctor
Speaker 2: Julaane Schmidt, is going to tell us a little bit
Speaker 2: about the history of the statue, from its planning and
Speaker 2: placement to its current state, melted into ingots in an
Speaker 2: undisclosed location. I'm joined today by doctor Julaane Schmidt, a
Speaker 2: professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, the
Speaker 2: director of the Memory Project at the University of Virginia's
Speaker 2: Karsh Institute of Democracy, and a steering committee member at
Speaker 2: the Swords into Plowshare's Project. As both a scholar and
Speaker 2: an activist, doctor Schmidt has been a leading voice in
Speaker 2: the Charlottesville community for racial justice and against the Confederate
Speaker 2: monuments that once stood here. The Swords into Plowsher's Project
Speaker 2: announced back in October that they had successfully dismantled and
Speaker 2: melted down the bronze statue of Roberty Lee that once
Speaker 2: loomed over the Market Street Park in downtown Charlottesville. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining me today to talk about
Speaker 2: the past, present, and future of that hunk of bronze.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Mollie. It's great to great to
Speaker 3: talk with you about this.
Speaker 2: I don't think i've called you Professor Schmidt since two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight when I took one of your classes.
Speaker 3: It's been a while. It's been a while. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: Now we just call each other comrades, you know, because
Speaker 3: we're out there on the streets and in city council
Speaker 3: and you know, doing the things.
Speaker 2: So before we get to the final fate of that
Speaker 2: melted bronze, I want to ground this in the history
Speaker 2: of that particular object. Right, This isn't just any Confederate monument.
Speaker 2: This is the statue that made Charlottesville household name, the
Speaker 2: statue that brought unite the right here, the statue that
Speaker 2: killed someone. It's a statue that had history in that
Speaker 2: park for a century before it came down and before
Speaker 2: it was removed. You led some really incredible walking tours
Speaker 2: of the downtown parks to try to tell the story
Speaker 2: of the way those statues existed in those spaces for generations,
Speaker 2: why they were there, what they meant, what impact they
Speaker 2: had on the landscape and the people in the community.
Speaker 2: I think I went on about a dozen of those
Speaker 2: walking tours, and I learned something new every single time.
Speaker 2: So can you talk a little bit about the political
Speaker 2: atmosphere in nineteen twenty four when that statue first went up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it should, you know, just kind of to
Speaker 3: back up a little bit, like the history of Charlottesville, Virginia.
Speaker 3: At around the time of the Civil War, over half
Speaker 3: of the population of the local population was enslaved in
Speaker 3: Charlottesville and surrounding Albmarle County, and black people were actually
Speaker 3: the majority of the population of Charlottesville until about eighteen
Speaker 3: ninety and then it has been on this steady decline,
Speaker 3: you know, since then. So to think about it, if
Speaker 3: you look at the history of reconstruction in Charlottesville, black
Speaker 3: people came out and registered to vote and got politically
Speaker 3: organized very quickly in the eighteen sixties already, and were
Speaker 3: very influential in electing a black delegate from Charlottesville to
Speaker 3: go to the Constitutional Convention. This is when in order
Speaker 3: to rejoin the Union, all of the former Confederate states
Speaker 3: had to get their state constitutions up to snuff, and
Speaker 3: so Virginia, as did the other former Confederate states, you know,
Speaker 3: had a constitutional convention. And our delegate from Charlottesville was
Speaker 3: James T. S. Taylor. He was a black man from Charlottesville.
Speaker 3: He'd been in the United States Colored Troops, and he
Speaker 3: had a coalition had coalesced around him of some progressive
Speaker 3: whites or savvy savvy whites, you know, that one through
Speaker 3: their lot with him and former enslaved people and went
Speaker 3: and you know, and represented us and put you know,
Speaker 3: Charlottesville in the mix for starting a new state constitution
Speaker 3: in Virginia, for finally getting public schools. You know, that's
Speaker 3: one thing that we can thank, you know, all those
Speaker 3: reconstruction governments around the South, you know, forgetting us those
Speaker 3: public schools that we wouldn't have otherwise had that we
Speaker 3: didn't have before. You know. So I say all that
Speaker 3: back that if you read the historical sources of the
Speaker 3: time during reconstruction and post reconstruction in Charlottesville, the white
Speaker 3: elites were quite upset with the state of affairs that
Speaker 3: had emerged after the Civil War, in which formerly enslaved
Speaker 3: people were in leadership compatity and political leadership, you know.
Speaker 3: And so when you look at the history of you know,
Speaker 3: then finally as as the new you know, there was
Speaker 3: a Reconstruction era constitution that started all those wonderful things
Speaker 3: such as you know, public schools, you know, and voting
Speaker 3: rights for black men. You know. But then as the
Speaker 3: Neil Confederates or the Confederate sympathizers start to get the
Speaker 3: upper hand again at the end of Reconstruction, and in
Speaker 3: Virginia that's you know, more or less in the in
Speaker 3: the eighteen eighties, you know, and then there's this steady
Speaker 3: imposition of Jim Crow, you know that's going into you know,
Speaker 3: in Richmond they put in their giant General Lee statue
Speaker 3: in eighteen ninety, you know there, and then in nineteen
Speaker 3: oh two there's finally there was this final push that
Speaker 3: pushed black people out of political office in Virginia, and
Speaker 3: in nineteen oh two, a new Jim Crow state Constitution
Speaker 3: was put into effect in nineteen oh two. And so
Speaker 3: you have to when you think about all of these
Speaker 3: statues being installed, we have to see it as this
Speaker 3: it's really resentment politics, you know, that's come about. That
Speaker 3: is if you look at these speeches that are delivered
Speaker 3: at the installation ceremonies of these statues, and this is
Speaker 3: where I'm getting to our General Lee Statue in Charlottesville
Speaker 3: specifically with this, you go back and look at those
Speaker 3: at the occasion for the day, and these these installation ceremonies,
Speaker 3: they were a time for the neo Confederate organizations, the
Speaker 3: hosting organizations in our case, the United Daughters of the Confederacy,
Speaker 3: the United Conveterate Veterans, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Okay,
Speaker 3: we're the hosts, you know for this event. And this
Speaker 3: is a two or three day occasion. So there's like
Speaker 3: delegations coming in from all over the state, you know,
Speaker 3: and you know there's this build up, you know, in
Speaker 3: the days ahead, you know, leading up to the installation.
Speaker 3: This was in May of nineteen twenty four, you know,
Speaker 3: so you see, oh, this delegation has arrived from Rowanoak,
Speaker 3: and now the governor is coming in and now this
Speaker 3: and now you know, and so you know, the town
Speaker 3: is just a twitter. You know that this that they
Speaker 3: are hosting the state wide reunion of the United Confederate Veterans.
Speaker 3: And there hardly are anymore at this time. They're you know,
Speaker 3: quite elderly at this point. So there, you know, there's
Speaker 3: quite this you know, uh celebration. And this is also
Speaker 3: an annual meeting of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. And
Speaker 3: so the fact that little Charlottesville is hosting a statewide reunion,
Speaker 3: you know, of the state wide of all the chapters
Speaker 3: you know, of these neo Confederate veterans is a big deal.
Speaker 3: And then and then you know they're doing this, you know,
Speaker 3: and within this context is when the unveiling of this
Speaker 3: statue is occurring, you see. And so it's this, it's
Speaker 3: this whole build up of kind of lost cause nostalgia,
Speaker 3: which which is occurring. And in the speeches at the
Speaker 3: Lee statue unveiling ceremony, it's very instructive to listen to
Speaker 3: what is being said. You know. You have, of course,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of local dignitaries and statewide you know
Speaker 3: dignitaries are there. The National Commander of the Sons of
Speaker 3: Confederate Veterans is there. He gives a speech. He was
Speaker 3: also a klansman, you know. You know, so this says
Speaker 3: something there that you know, nineteen twenties Charlottesville. You know,
Speaker 3: elites were not averse to rubbing shoulders with a known klansman,
Speaker 3: you know, who had been invited to give a speech.
Speaker 3: You know, other invited guests. One was a minister who
Speaker 3: was a gradu what of the University of Virginia, and
Speaker 3: it was you know, just kind of revealing, you know
Speaker 3: what he said in his in his speech, you know,
Speaker 3: when he was talking about he said that that the
Speaker 3: days of reconstruction were worse than war. You know, so
Speaker 3: this right exactly, Yeah, does beg the question, and that yeah,
Speaker 3: goes without saying, of course that this is you know,
Speaker 3: almost exclusively a white audience and you know, the white
Speaker 3: school kids. School has been canceled for the day, the
Speaker 3: university as classes you know, canceled for the day, and
Speaker 3: you know, the businesses are closed. I mean, this is
Speaker 3: just you know, quite the community event that's going on. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: so reconstruction was worse than war. You know, we're celebrating today,
Speaker 3: you know, the you know, the spirit of Lea, the
Speaker 3: regeneration you know of our values and you know, there's
Speaker 3: just a lot of of conversation in these in these inaugurations, ceremonies,
Speaker 3: you know for the unveiling of these statues that hearkened
Speaker 3: to rebirth and regeneration, and you know, and also you know,
Speaker 3: kind of recalling you know, the days of old, you know,
Speaker 3: and the and the values you know of our veterans
Speaker 3: you know who are now you know of course in
Speaker 3: dwindling number, you know, these Confederate veterans who are there.
Speaker 3: And so this and as I said, there's been this
Speaker 3: whole build up you know, for days and days, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean of course for the planning committee, this has
Speaker 3: been going on for weeks and months, you know, the
Speaker 3: fundraising and you know, reserving you know blocks you know
Speaker 3: at the hotels and you know, and all guesthouses and
Speaker 3: all this kind of thing you know, banquet halls, et cetera.
Speaker 3: You know. But it's it's also revealing that this installation
Speaker 3: ceremony for the Lee statue, it is booke nded with
Speaker 3: clan activity and uptick in clan activity before and after
Speaker 3: the installation ceremony. And why while we don't have well
Speaker 3: we do know, but you know one one clansman who
Speaker 3: you know, the Commander Lee, no relation to the General Lee,
Speaker 3: but uh but the president of the Sons of the
Speaker 3: Confederate veterans, you know. But but to just see all
Speaker 3: of this uptick in lost cause nostalgia and then these
Speaker 3: these acts of intimidation of you know, clan rallies, clan
Speaker 3: posters that were you know, put flyers around town, you know, uh,
Speaker 3: and this sort of thing. It just it they're the
Speaker 3: atmosphere of intimidation. You know that this must have been
Speaker 3: for black residents you know of the time. Uh, you know,
Speaker 3: it just it really gives you pause, you know, just
Speaker 3: just seeing how public space was commandeered, you know by
Speaker 3: these people, these Neil Confederates, you know, to kind of
Speaker 3: uh relive what they considered, you know, kind of the
Speaker 3: glory days you know, of the nation you know, and
Speaker 3: the kind of values to which they want to return,
Speaker 3: you know, and and and this sort of thing. So yeah,
Speaker 3: so this is going on, you know in the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 3: as you know, Charlottesville is you know, locked into Jim
Speaker 3: Crow by then, you know, and we're twenty two years
Speaker 3: into that Jim Crow State constitution. You know, this is
Speaker 3: the mail u you know in which in which this
Speaker 3: is taking place. Now. Of course, black people have their
Speaker 3: own institutions, you know that they've founded, you know, namely churches,
Speaker 3: the Jefferson School, African American what's now the African American
Speaker 3: Heritage Center, but the Jefferson School, which was a school
Speaker 3: for black children, and the founding of the High school
Speaker 3: of a black high school. So this was you know,
Speaker 3: the black community had its own nodes of organizational strength,
Speaker 3: you know, and goings on that were happening even as
Speaker 3: you know, there were these pressures you going on with
Speaker 3: the consolidation of Jim Crow should also mention that, you know,
Speaker 3: at this at around same time in spring of nineteen
Speaker 3: twenty four was the passage of the Virginia Racial Integrity Act,
Speaker 3: and this was the kind of the codification of the
Speaker 3: so called one Drop Rule, which designated anyone with a
Speaker 3: perceived ad mixture of African American or Native American ancestry
Speaker 3: to be designated as colored, you know, and kind of
Speaker 3: bifurcating the population of Virginia into two categories white or colored.
Speaker 3: And so this is also occurring, you know, in nineteen
Speaker 3: twenty four. There's a very you know, there's very much
Speaker 3: of a legal you know, a kind of strengthening, you
Speaker 3: know of in terms of the tools that are being
Speaker 3: used to separate the races quote unquote, you know, and
Speaker 3: what we're seeing then in the parks, you know, in
Speaker 3: our public spaces were you know, kind of designating what
Speaker 3: we're well, not public spaces, I mean they were you know,
Speaker 3: kind of designated you know, almost shrine like, you know,
Speaker 3: as white spaces, you know, and that this is it's
Speaker 3: a kind of broadcasting of who's in charge, is what's
Speaker 3: going on?
Speaker 2: Right, I think you know today the sons of Confederate
Speaker 2: Veterans very much separate themselves from the clan. Right, there
Speaker 2: were a heritage organization. We're not the clan, but you
Speaker 2: were talking about this sort of clan activity leading up
Speaker 2: to the unveiling of the statue. And it's actually just
Speaker 2: looking back this morning at some of the archival newspapers
Speaker 2: from that week. And so when the day the statue
Speaker 2: was placed, you know a few weeks before the unveiling,
Speaker 2: it was still covered, it was shrouded, you know, it's
Speaker 2: leading up to the big day. So in the front
Speaker 2: page of the Daily Progress the day that the statue
Speaker 2: was put in the park, that little snippet appears in
Speaker 2: the newspaper, right next to a headline about cross burning.
Speaker 2: These things are happening on at the same time, right,
Speaker 2: And there was absolutely a big clan march through town
Speaker 2: that week. And I think one of the it's easy
Speaker 2: to forget that these historical moments were experienced by people
Speaker 2: whose words that we still have, like people who were
Speaker 2: living in this moment. I think one of one moment
Speaker 2: in your historical tour that really has stuck with me
Speaker 2: all these years is an anecdote about John West, who
Speaker 2: is for the listener as a man was born into
Speaker 2: slavery in this era, was one of the largest black
Speaker 2: landowners in the area, was a successful businessman, and when
Speaker 2: the klan marched by that week, you know, they're wearing
Speaker 2: their hoods, you don't know who they are. It's you know,
Speaker 2: it's mysterious, it's intimidating. But he knew who every single
Speaker 2: clansman was because he was their barber, and he recognized
Speaker 2: their shoes. And that just feels so intimate to me, right,
Speaker 2: that he's he's looking at the shoes of these men
Speaker 2: that he knows, and then tomorrow they're going to come
Speaker 2: in for a shave and a haircut and he has
Speaker 2: to say, you know, yes, sir, thank you.
Speaker 3: Sir, that's right, that's right. And so if you can
Speaker 3: just imagine like you know, and here you know John West.
Speaker 3: You know, so here's one of the most you know,
Speaker 3: influential Black residents of Charlottesville at that time, and he
Speaker 3: has to live yeah in you know that there's this
Speaker 3: this atmosphere of intimidation that you that, Yeah, his clients
Speaker 3: are coming in, you know, they're coming in every ten
Speaker 3: days or fourteen days to get a get a trim,
Speaker 3: get a you know, touch up, you know here and there,
Speaker 3: and yeah, and and he knows that these you know
Speaker 3: that that these are you know, the folks who are
Speaker 3: kind of maintaining you know that this this public order,
Speaker 3: you know that is so uh. You know that you know,
Speaker 3: you better not step out of line. And so just
Speaker 3: to have one's public space, you know, be demarcated, you know,
Speaker 3: in such a demonstrative way, you know, in a monumental way.
Speaker 3: You know, really yeah exactly is is uh, it really
Speaker 3: illustrates what's going on, you know, and even in you know,
Speaker 3: relationships like that, you know that that are so like
Speaker 3: you know, intimate a barber and a client, you know,
Speaker 3: and and knowing you know what you're as are up
Speaker 3: to you know, and how you better stay in line.
Speaker 4: You know, it's scary, that's what that statue was here,
Speaker 4: right for almost a century, So skipping ahead that century,
Speaker 4: right when the statue finally came down in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: so not too long ago, right, So the city solicited
Speaker 4: proposals for what was to be done with it, right.
Speaker 2: A lot of cities put them into storage or moved
Speaker 2: them to battlefields or museums didn't want them. People say, well,
Speaker 2: why can't it go to a music museums didn't want it, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So because of my work, I get pulled in
Speaker 3: on a lot of different statue statue related consultations, let's
Speaker 3: put it that way. And I was on the George
Speaker 3: Rogers Clark Committee at the University of Virginia when the
Speaker 3: university was trying to decide what to do with a
Speaker 3: very hideous called it the Genocide Trophy. It was a
Speaker 3: statue of the George Rogers Clark, the conqueror of the Northwest.
Speaker 3: It literally said that on the facade, you know. And
Speaker 3: so we were in consultation with native tribes. We were
Speaker 3: contacting the various tribal nations who suffered the onslaught of
Speaker 3: the so called Northwest campaign. So these tribes that are
Speaker 3: in what is now Illinois and Ohio, et cetera, you know,
Speaker 3: and just asking them, you know, would you like to
Speaker 3: kind of weigh in, you know, on this, and you know,
Speaker 3: really sad genocide is a real thing. Some folks who
Speaker 3: are just no longer there, you know, or you know,
Speaker 3: were you know, became such a remnant, you know, as
Speaker 3: they were so decimated that you know, they kind of
Speaker 3: you know, morphed into you know, other tribes others were
Speaker 3: you know, went on you know later on to you know,
Speaker 3: to Oklahoma or other places. You know, just dispersal, you know,
Speaker 3: really was you know. You know. So we're in this
Speaker 3: you know, kind of year long process trying to figure
Speaker 3: out what to do with UVa's own statue there, you know,
Speaker 3: also a gift of Paul Goodlow McIntyre, you know, the
Speaker 3: same donor who gave the least statue to the city,
Speaker 3: gave this Steorge Rogers Clark statue to the university. And
Speaker 3: so in doing that committee work, we made appointments with
Speaker 3: all the big players all that, you know, and here
Speaker 3: we are. We're from the University of Virginia, you know,
Speaker 3: and we've got this, you know, big big monument here,
Speaker 3: you know, the Smithsonian, the you know, and you know,
Speaker 3: we talked to not about this one, but in another instance,
Speaker 3: talk to you know, the Civil War Museum's battle Fields.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I mean, we contacted all the responsible you know, the
Speaker 3: folks who are going to curate this in a in
Speaker 3: a responsible way, you know, because you know that's it
Speaker 3: is a monumental work of art. You know, it has
Speaker 3: stood here for a century. It does have historical value
Speaker 3: of a sort, you know. And I mean and you know,
Speaker 3: and as someone who has you know, teaches history and
Speaker 3: research's history, that's my that's my inclination. My initial inclination is, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: well we should preserve I mean, that's you know, kind
Speaker 3: of where I go to. But the problem is it's
Speaker 3: a very practical one. This is a material object that
Speaker 3: is taking up space, literal and figurative space in the world.
Speaker 2: It's six six thousand pounds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the very materiality of it. It is taking
Speaker 3: up space, and you you have to figure out what
Speaker 3: space is it going to inhabit. This is a very
Speaker 3: practical question. If it's not in your park anymore, where's
Speaker 3: it going to be? We contacted all these museums, you know,
Speaker 3: and in several you know, different consultations. I've been a
Speaker 3: part of where we've been trying to get rid of statues.
Speaker 3: Nobody wants them, Nobody responsible wants them. And you know,
Speaker 3: and even if they did have an inclination to want
Speaker 3: to do just the expense of it, you know, who
Speaker 3: wants to reinforce their floors to put a you know,
Speaker 3: century old you know, artistically not exemplary, you know, monument
Speaker 3: in it, you know, and then care for I mean,
Speaker 3: museums have very limited budgets, they're nonprofit organizations. Why should
Speaker 3: they be expending all this energy? I love the My
Speaker 3: colleague Aaron Thompson from John Jay College and Cuney, you know,
Speaker 3: she's an art crime professor, and she said, you know,
Speaker 3: she talked with somebody at the Smithsonian who said something
Speaker 3: to the effect that, you know, we're not America's attic
Speaker 3: for racist arts. That's not our role. It's like, you know,
Speaker 3: it kind of does throw back the responsibility to individual
Speaker 3: communities too. It's like, you know, you have a part
Speaker 3: to play in this, you know. And so anyway, yeah,
Speaker 3: so we tried to do the responsible thing. We contacted
Speaker 3: all all the responsible actors out there. They don't want them,
Speaker 3: And so then the question becomes, Okay, the city also
Speaker 3: doesn't want it sitting on its back lot for forever
Speaker 3: in perpetuity. You know, They've got things, you know, they've
Speaker 3: got equipment there, they've got things that you know, this
Speaker 3: shouldn't be sitting there. Where is it going to go? Again?
Speaker 3: This is the material object that exists in the world.
Speaker 3: It is a problem, you know, like what physical space
Speaker 3: is it going to occupy? We're just such brute practicality here,
Speaker 3: and I don't think people quite get what it means
Speaker 3: to deal with this. And the only people who want
Speaker 3: it are the very people who shouldn't have it, you know,
Speaker 3: who want to take this object that's caused us so
Speaker 3: much pain and to make a shrine out of it,
Speaker 3: you know, that would continue to attract bad actors, you know,
Speaker 3: and that it would you know. And I'm a religious
Speaker 3: studies scholar, so when I use I don't use the
Speaker 3: word shrine lightly. I know what kinds of activities you know, uh,
Speaker 3: these engender, you know, and the sorts of emotions that
Speaker 3: are you know, evoked, you know, in the ceremonies around
Speaker 3: you know, objects that are that are held to be sacred.
Speaker 3: You know that that attract you know, kind of devotees,
Speaker 3: you know, and so you really have to think about
Speaker 3: what does it mean to be a responsible ethical actor?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like now we're we're in grown up world. Now,
Speaker 3: it's like, okay, it's like we want you know, it's
Speaker 3: like there is a material object, where are we going
Speaker 3: to put it? It's like have an adjunct car, what
Speaker 3: do you do with it? You just let it sit
Speaker 3: in your driveway and make your neighbors mad at you.
Speaker 2: Right, And these Confederate statues are sort of the junk
Speaker 2: cars of the lost cause, right, because they're not rare, right, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, especially right after Unite the Right, a bunch
Speaker 2: of cities, all of a sudden, we're like, we got
Speaker 2: to get rid of these things. And so suddenly the
Speaker 2: market is flooded with Confederate statues. Where are you going
Speaker 2: to put them?
Speaker 3: That's right at that and that is the question. And
Speaker 3: they are And I've used this this metaphor before, the
Speaker 3: metaphor of toxic waste. You know, it's not responsible to say, oh,
Speaker 3: we want to get rid of our toxic trash. Here
Speaker 3: and then ship it down the road to the next
Speaker 3: town and say, Okay, well we're done with that. That's
Speaker 3: not responsible to make that town have to deal, you know.
Speaker 3: Or maybe there maybe there were some people in that
Speaker 3: town that wanted it, you know, but that's not fair
Speaker 3: to the other people to have to breathe in that
Speaker 3: air and it brings that water that's that's poisoned by this.
Speaker 3: That's not that's not being responsible, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So it really is an ethical question, you know, what
Speaker 3: what space these toxic objects are going to inhabit, And
Speaker 3: so we were unable to find any responsible actors who
Speaker 3: would take this on. And so then it kind of
Speaker 3: it's like, well, I guess it's kind of on us.
Speaker 3: We have to you know, like the Smithsonian. It's like,
Speaker 3: we're not the attic for your racist trash, you know.
Speaker 3: It's like it's it's really it's it's on us. It's
Speaker 3: on communities to figure this out, you know. And if
Speaker 3: there isn't uh, you know, some sort of organization that
Speaker 3: can responsibly curate this, you know, and care for it,
Speaker 3: then you know, we really need to think about it.
Speaker 3: And in the case of this Lee Statue of Charlottesville's
Speaker 3: Lee statue. You know, they are about I think there
Speaker 3: are about sixteen monuments of Lee, like kind of equestrian
Speaker 3: monuments of this sort, you know, in the country. I
Speaker 3: can say with confidence that all of the others are
Speaker 3: of better quality in Charlottesville.
Speaker 2: That's such an important point, right, because this is, you know,
Speaker 2: an important historical piece of art. And that's true of
Speaker 2: some of them. Some of them are legitimate pieces of
Speaker 2: but this one is not.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was like he was smuggling hams in
Speaker 2: his sleeves.
Speaker 3: Oh well yeah, so yeah, it's it's terrible. It's really
Speaker 3: a case. The Lee statue from Charlottesville is really a
Speaker 3: case of too many chefs spoiled the soup. You know,
Speaker 3: they they you know they The original sculptor, Schradie, you know,
Speaker 3: was commissioned to do this, this this work, and he
Speaker 3: got behind on the because he was finishing another another
Speaker 3: work of his, which is generally regarded as his magnum opus,
Speaker 3: which is a monument to General Grant. I just love that.
Speaker 3: It's just sorry, p right, you got to wait and
Speaker 3: working on my best piece.
Speaker 2: Already finished, a beautiful statue of Grant, and then he died.
Speaker 3: And then he died. He died, and supposedly it might
Speaker 3: be apocryphal. I kind of like this tale that supposedly
Speaker 3: when he's on his deathbed trade he's on his death
Speaker 3: bending and he's still thinking about that unfinished Lee. Probably
Speaker 3: he's like, oh, mind the you know, mind the cloth,
Speaker 3: you know, keep it damp.
Speaker 2: You know it's a plaster wet, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, keep the plaster. He'd made a maquette, he'd made
Speaker 3: a model, play model of the Lee statue for Charlottesville,
Speaker 3: for that next commission, the unfinished commission. And he dies
Speaker 3: and so now it's like, well, you know, this is
Speaker 3: a problem, you know, for for the philanthropist and the
Speaker 3: community or the community leaders of Charlotsville who wanted this
Speaker 3: Lee statue. So they find they find a ringer, you know,
Speaker 3: this young guy, you know, Leo and Telly. Interesting, you
Speaker 3: know Italian immigrant in the twenties, which is kind of interest,
Speaker 3: you know when you think about, you know, all the
Speaker 3: hate that was being.
Speaker 2: Whipped before it towns were white, right.
Speaker 3: And that was before Italians were white.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: But he was, yeah, kind of direct from Italy and
Speaker 3: from a sculpting background. So maybe they made a little
Speaker 3: exception for him. I don't know anyway, So this young guy,
Speaker 3: you know, Leo Intell, he takes over and you know
Speaker 3: he probably needed a little more practice. I don't know,
Speaker 3: it just did didn't turn out well.
Speaker 2: It's like the lego tail on Traveler, like a chunky No.
Speaker 3: It's just yeah, there was We had a sculptor from
Speaker 3: around here who himself works in bronze and desk monumental work,
Speaker 3: and he kind of just kind of came and looked
Speaker 3: at it and he was just you know, just everything's
Speaker 3: out of proportion. The gauntlets on the glove are too thick,
Speaker 3: you know, the sword is too long, the tail is
Speaker 3: too fat, I mean in his head. Yeah, that Lee's
Speaker 3: head on top of his shoulders. It just looks like,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of like almost like Transformer toy or something.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just really weird, you know, proportions. It's
Speaker 3: just it just really was not very well executed because
Speaker 3: apparently the maquette, the model that had been made, just
Speaker 3: was completely destroyed. The model, the original model by Schrady,
Speaker 3: was completely turned to dust, and so Lintelly, the successor sculptor,
Speaker 3: had to work from the drawings that remained. You know,
Speaker 3: and you know, it just didn't didn't really go very well.
Speaker 3: And here's the thing that even the boosters at the time,
Speaker 3: that is, you know, the folks that were planning for
Speaker 3: the installation of the Lee statue in the nineteen twenties
Speaker 3: themselves did not think it was very well executed. We
Speaker 3: have diary entries from the Master of Ceremonies of the
Speaker 3: installation ceremony, RTW Duke's and he says, he writes, is
Speaker 3: like dare to before the installation, he says, went on
Speaker 3: a walk, you know tonight, you know, went by the park,
Speaker 3: you know, saw the Lee statue. I do not like.
Speaker 2: It me either.
Speaker 3: This is the guy who's please damn see at this
Speaker 3: unveiling ceremony. And you know, the next day or two,
Speaker 3: how embarrassing. Yeah, and there's op eds even, you know,
Speaker 3: also they're saying like, wow, you know that that just
Speaker 3: doesn't look good at all, you know. So and these
Speaker 3: are the these are the support these are the Neo Confederates,
Speaker 3: the one it there and and they've they've noticed that
Speaker 3: too many cooks spoiled the soup, you know. And then
Speaker 3: apparently the murmurs were sufficient that one of the speakers
Speaker 3: at the installation ceremony. I can harken back to that,
Speaker 3: you know, at the Lee installation ceremony. You know, I
Speaker 3: guess felt compelled to address the complaints that were apparently circulating,
Speaker 3: and he said, you know, I'm talking about the portionality
Speaker 3: problem that I mentioned before, that just so many it's
Speaker 3: just very disjointed, you know, so many parts of the
Speaker 3: of the monument are out of proportion to other parts.
Speaker 3: And so this speaker at the installation ceremony said, you know,
Speaker 3: there are those who say that the pedestal you know,
Speaker 3: upon which the Lee statue is, you know, is set,
Speaker 3: is too small, But I say the world itself is
Speaker 3: too small a pedestal for General Lee just like oh yeah,
Speaker 3: good say it's it's yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: The portions, I mean, the whole thing. The plinth was
Speaker 2: too small, the statue was too large for that tiny park.
Speaker 2: It just it was never a good spot for him.
Speaker 3: It was never a good spot. So anyway, all that
Speaker 3: is to say, it's a very it's a very poor
Speaker 3: work of art. Just just an aesthetic, I mean, and
Speaker 3: I'm not one that wants to remove, you know, kind
Speaker 3: of any moral considerations from aesthetic. There are some people
Speaker 3: philosophers who want to parse that out and this sort
Speaker 3: of thing. And but even if you believe you could
Speaker 3: do that, which I do not, you know, it's just
Speaker 3: really a not It's like having a high school art
Speaker 3: project a CE, I give it a C. It's a
Speaker 3: high school art project that it's not.
Speaker 2: Worth saving, right, No, Like even if it had not
Speaker 2: been this sort of lightning rod in our community, right that,
Speaker 2: even if this were a you know, a beautiful piece
Speaker 2: of art that was worth saving, I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 2: There's two separate concerns, right, Like it's not beautiful enough
Speaker 2: to put into a museum regardless, But then also preserving
Speaker 2: this object in any capacity just allows it to sort
Speaker 2: of continue to be this lightning rod, like you known,
Speaker 2: sort of still asking about, well, what's the problem with recontextualization.
Speaker 2: Why can't you just put it somewhere else? And I
Speaker 2: think that's sort of a broader conversation about these statues
Speaker 2: in general. But for our statue, for that Robert E.
Speaker 2: Lee statue, right that it had become sort of a
Speaker 2: pilgrimage site for vigilanti violence.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I don't know that, Like just out for
Speaker 3: the listeners in radio land. Just for folks out there
Speaker 3: listening that even after the twenty seventeen Unite the Right rally,
Speaker 3: this statue stood for another four years in our park
Speaker 3: while we had to wrestle through legal issues, legislative and
Speaker 3: judicial entanglements that prevented Charlottesville from removing that statue even
Speaker 3: after the Unite the Right rally, and during that time,
Speaker 3: that four year interim. It's crazy to think about it, huh,
Speaker 3: for ye that for four years after Unite the Right,
Speaker 3: it was still there, Like.
Speaker 2: The statue made everyone else realized they needed to get
Speaker 2: rid of theirs. But because of state law and these lawsuits,
Speaker 2: we were still stuck with ours.
Speaker 3: Charlottesville was still stuck with it. And there were and
Speaker 3: these you know, different groups, some of the same constituencies
Speaker 3: that had attended Unite the Right continued to come and
Speaker 3: make their pilgrimages to the least sat and to antagonize
Speaker 3: community members by putting up their propaganda near the statues
Speaker 3: and even uh, you know, going to the fourth you know,
Speaker 3: the the crash site on Fourth Street where a neo
Speaker 3: Nazi drove his car you know, into a crowd of
Speaker 3: Charlottesville counter protesters and killed community member heather Hire. These
Speaker 3: these uh fascists you know, who would make their pilgrimage
Speaker 3: to Charlottesville, would make sure and still do on occasion,
Speaker 3: uh go to Fourth Street and put up their propaganda
Speaker 3: there as well as if to kind of further antagonize
Speaker 3: the community at a site of our trauma, you know.
Speaker 3: And so it was very clear that this statue would
Speaker 3: just wherever it would be, it would continue to be
Speaker 3: a beacon for these people. And so really it was
Speaker 3: just kind of a question of responsibility knowing this, uh,
Speaker 3: knowing that no responsible historical or artistic institution has the
Speaker 3: capacity or desire to take it in what does one
Speaker 3: do with it? And that it's not an exemplary piece
Speaker 3: of art. There are fifteen other monuments that are of
Speaker 3: better quality of Lee. We're not going to forget him,
Speaker 3: you know, if this particular specimen goes missing, and the
Speaker 3: way we see it, we're doing the art world a favor,
Speaker 3: because as I've said, it was really, you know, not
Speaker 3: a very good, well executed piece of art. So, you know,
Speaker 3: with in considering all of that, you know, in seeing
Speaker 3: in prior removals, for instance, the Johnny reb the Courthouse,
Speaker 3: Confederate Soldier, statue was removed, and there was kind of
Speaker 3: no plan in place about where it would go, and
Speaker 3: so it ended up, you know, getting sent to a
Speaker 3: battlefield that is maintained by a group of Confederate leading
Speaker 3: folks that seem to favor kind of lost cause interpretations
Speaker 3: of the war. So we'd seen that happen already the
Speaker 3: year before in twenty twenty, that when there isn't a plan,
Speaker 3: it's one thing to remove it, but then where does
Speaker 3: it go? Again, this is a physical object that exists
Speaker 3: in space, in physical space, where is this material object
Speaker 3: going to go? If you don't have a plan, then
Speaker 3: bad things can happen.
Speaker 2: The police resistance the past, the Lae resistance is just
Speaker 2: if someone says I will pay to move this, and
Speaker 2: the city is paying to store it, then that's an
Speaker 2: easy answer and you can't let that.
Speaker 3: Take it right, And so that that went. So when
Speaker 3: the County Aldmarle County removed the Johnny reb statue, the
Speaker 3: Confederate soldier statue from in front of the courthouse, and
Speaker 3: I think that was September of twenty twenty, and we
Speaker 3: saw how quickly that got sent to this battlefield that is,
Speaker 3: you know, maintained by these you know, kind of lost
Speaker 3: cause type folks. That's when Andrea Douglas and I and
Speaker 3: Andrea Douglas is the director of the Jefferson School African
Speaker 3: American Heritage Center here in Charlottesville. We said, you know,
Speaker 3: we still do not have the legal authority to remove
Speaker 3: Charlottesville's Lee statue, but we anticipated that perhaps, you know,
Speaker 3: in the in the coming year, we might I said,
Speaker 3: we need to start making plans now about what can have,
Speaker 3: what where the statue should go after its removal, because otherwise,
Speaker 3: the same thing that happened to this Johnny reb to
Speaker 3: this Confederate soldier statue just kind of getting sent down
Speaker 3: the road, you know, to whatever entity organization that wants it,
Speaker 3: the same thing's going to happen, and we need to
Speaker 3: have a plan in place in order to kind of
Speaker 3: capture that so that it doesn't just kind of continue
Speaker 3: to circulate and to do harm. So that was our motivation.
Speaker 3: So we kind of, you know, in September of twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: that's when we really you know, put the pedal to
Speaker 3: the metal on starting the planning of this, you know.
Speaker 3: And we and mind you, we did not even get
Speaker 3: permission until I think It was April the first of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, and finally the Virginia Supreme Court ruled
Speaker 3: in favor of the City of Charlottesville in our efforts
Speaker 3: to remove the Lea statue. You know. So this was
Speaker 3: you know, six seven months before we even knew if
Speaker 3: we could do this, but we said, let's start making plans,
Speaker 3: and so we started having these kinds of conversations you know,
Speaker 3: with battlefields, with museums, with foundries, you know, just just
Speaker 3: you know, just learning, you know, kind of the nuts
Speaker 3: and bolts, you know, what are the possibilities here? And
Speaker 3: it turns out it's very complicated.
Speaker 2: Right, So, I know there's been sort of jokes around
Speaker 2: that it was going back over some of the public
Speaker 2: discourse over the years that we've been sort of joking
Speaker 2: as a community for years, like why don't we just
Speaker 2: melt it? Why don't we just melt it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: But when did that because a real idea like when
Speaker 2: did it? When did that sort of coalesce into something
Speaker 2: that felt possible.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, in September twenty twenty, I think
Speaker 3: when the Johnny reb statue was removed and it went on,
Speaker 3: you know to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefield Foundation, you know,
Speaker 3: and they have this horrible plaque that they're putting up
Speaker 3: that talks about how these men died for Virginia, you know,
Speaker 3: and it's like they died for thirty eight percent of
Speaker 3: Virginians were enslaved at that time, So how are you
Speaker 3: saying that they died for Virginia. Also, this is from
Speaker 3: alb Marle County. The majority of people here were enslaved.
Speaker 3: So how did how did the people supposedly represented by
Speaker 3: this statue die for Virginia fight for Virginia, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean? So we just like that was so disturbing,
Speaker 3: you know, in September of twenty twenty, when that happened,
Speaker 3: that's that's really when I just really started working in Earnest,
Speaker 3: you know, calling foundries.
Speaker 2: So the idea was always melting.
Speaker 3: I mean, it wasn't until then because see this is funny.
Speaker 3: When this whole controversy started in twenty sixteen, when Ziona
Speaker 3: Bryant brought up her petition, you know, to to consider
Speaker 3: removing these statues. The the position of the activist then
Speaker 3: was just move the statue, go back and look at
Speaker 3: the signs and at the T shirts and it says
Speaker 3: hashtag move the statue. We just wanted it move. Just
Speaker 3: take it from the Central Park and put it out
Speaker 3: in McIntyre Park where there's more space. Don't have it downtown.
Speaker 3: I mean that was kind of like that was the edgy,
Speaker 3: you know, And then.
Speaker 2: They should have taken the opportunity back then, see.
Speaker 3: Right exactly that was the opening bid, and you should
Speaker 3: have took it, you.
Speaker 2: Know, just these on the table anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly that that that that would have been good.
Speaker 3: It would be in Mark mctire Park on the outskirts
Speaker 3: of town. So and so, you know, when that when
Speaker 3: the when, you know, the city appointed this Blue Ribbon
Speaker 3: Commission on Race Memorials in Public Spaces to have a
Speaker 3: series of public meetings to hear from Unity members what
Speaker 3: they wanted to have happened with the statues. Should they
Speaker 3: be removed, should you know, what should happen? And you know,
Speaker 3: and this Blue Ribbon Commission, you know, hands their final
Speaker 3: report to city council, you know, and then city council
Speaker 3: takes the vote, you know, Charlotsville City Council in February
Speaker 3: of twenty seventeen, and surprising many people, not some of
Speaker 3: us who were in the know. But one of the
Speaker 3: council members said, yes, I would like to propose a
Speaker 3: resolution to remove the lead, not just move it, not
Speaker 3: just recontextualize it, because that's you know, if you go
Speaker 3: back and read that report, it's actually fairly there's a
Speaker 3: couple of different suggests like, well you could move it,
Speaker 3: or you could just do this, and you know, and
Speaker 3: city council woman, you know, Christian Zakas, said, I would
Speaker 3: you know, make a motion to have it removed completely,
Speaker 3: you know. So it's like, whoa, Okay, we're you know,
Speaker 3: we're making steps, you know. So it was it was about,
Speaker 3: you know, it was getting from move from move the
Speaker 3: state to remove the statue, as in take it away,
Speaker 3: you know, and then it really wasn't until after all
Speaker 3: the strife, you know. I mean, I think there were
Speaker 3: some people all along who's you know, would say tongue
Speaker 3: in cheek, oh we should just melt it down, you know,
Speaker 3: or you know, she'd you know, But but the thought
Speaker 3: it was just so you know, talk about there's much
Speaker 3: talk of overton windows these days, you know, but they're
Speaker 3: just they're just when that was being said, it was
Speaker 3: always in a kind of jocular manner like, oh, of
Speaker 3: course that could never be but or we should melt
Speaker 3: it down. It was this kind of offhand right, it
Speaker 3: wasn't serious because how could that ever be? Right? I
Speaker 3: mean that really that was behind. But what it takes
Speaker 3: is somebody taking that seriously and like going through the
Speaker 3: practical steps of what would that look like? And so
Speaker 3: that's what I started doing in September twenty twenty. It's like,
Speaker 3: I keep hearing people say that they want it melted down,
Speaker 3: What would that look like? What do you like physically
Speaker 3: do that this happened. I'm a humanities person. This was
Speaker 3: breaking my brain learning about alloys and you know, compositions.
Speaker 2: Here it becomes an engineering problem.
Speaker 3: It really did. Yeah, and I did. I consulted with
Speaker 3: you know, metallurgist engineers, you know, folks at various foundries
Speaker 3: you know, to to you know, consulting and say, well,
Speaker 3: you have to do this, you have to you know,
Speaker 3: consider that. I mean so yeah, it was really in
Speaker 3: the fall of twenty twenty when you know, kind of
Speaker 3: in earnest started having conversations, you know, with with foundrymen
Speaker 3: and with engineers, with folks that work in bronze casting.
Speaker 3: You know, but most of the time people didn't want
Speaker 3: to talk to us right when they found out, oh
Speaker 3: you want to do something with this with the stat
Speaker 3: oh no, they just you know, they were they didn't
Speaker 3: want to be involved in any controversy. Or we would
Speaker 3: get someone who was on board with it, Yes we're
Speaker 3: going to do it, and then for instance, you know,
Speaker 3: the company got sold and the new owners were like,
Speaker 3: what nothing to do with it, you know, or they
Speaker 3: won't call us back anymore, or no, or you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, just things just kept coming up. So it
Speaker 3: was hard to find anyone who would just engage in
Speaker 3: a serious way about the questions. And then even when
Speaker 3: you could, it was kind of like, you know, you'd
Speaker 3: get somebody for a little bit, and then it was
Speaker 3: you know, like the fisher, it's like, you know, catch
Speaker 3: the fish would swim away, you know, kind of I
Speaker 3: don't know it just you know, So it was it
Speaker 3: was a lot of different conversations with a lot of
Speaker 3: different people, you know, along the way to figure out
Speaker 3: like what are the you know, literal and figurative nuts
Speaker 3: and bolts of doing this. You know, I learned a lot,
Speaker 3: like you know, about standard width of trailers eight and
Speaker 3: a half feet Did you know that? Yeah, eight and
Speaker 3: half feet yep, right right, you know, and you know
Speaker 3: fifty three feet long, and you know, and you know
Speaker 3: kind of what kind of what's the hauling capacity, what's
Speaker 3: the payload? You know, how do you balance the load?
Speaker 3: You know? What is duneage? I mean you're just like
Speaker 3: all these things. You know that that just the very
Speaker 3: practical steps that one has to take to melt a statue.
Speaker 2: And so it seems like, you know, the conclusion that
Speaker 2: you reached was this object can't keep existing because the
Speaker 2: fact that it does exist will always be a problem.
Speaker 2: So that this is the decision was made that it
Speaker 2: needed to be destroyed. But what was sort of the
Speaker 2: process of thinking through what do we do with it now?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Like, what is this sort of the vision behind not
Speaker 2: just yeah, you know, taking the statue down and putting
Speaker 2: up a different piece of public art, but a different
Speaker 2: piece of public art that is physically repurposed. Right that
Speaker 2: you've you've remediated this material.
Speaker 3: Right right? Yeah, Well, we prefer the word transformed, you know,
Speaker 3: to destroyed or or I mean it is it is,
Speaker 3: you know, definitely, it is you know, kind of morphing
Speaker 3: the material is taking the materials, you know, these raw materials,
Speaker 3: and you know, transforming them into kind of usable you know,
Speaker 3: kind of ingots, brick sized, you know, pieces of bronze,
Speaker 3: so that they can be made into something new. It's
Speaker 3: not that we hate art. We want art, right.
Speaker 2: You know doctor Douglas's her background is in art, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, doctor Douglas is an art historian. I mean, we
Speaker 3: are the two most unlikely people to be in charge
Speaker 3: of such a project. I mean, I'm a religious study scholar.
Speaker 3: It's like I've spent years of my life, you know,
Speaker 3: studying you know, how people, you know, make make sacred values,
Speaker 3: and specifically how they gather around material objects that they regard.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's unlikely at all, right, that this
Speaker 2: was an object of veneration for a very harmful cause.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know you're sort of seventeen years, you know,
Speaker 3: researching a book about a a very beloved four hundred
Speaker 3: year old effigy of the Virgin Mary in Cuba. You
Speaker 3: can see my book up here. Well, there's a Cuban fla.
Speaker 3: This right here is my book. Look I'm going over
Speaker 3: too far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see the Virgin Mary back there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, so I yeah, so that's that's my book
Speaker 3: up here. Yeah, right here, this is my book, Kachita's Streets.
Speaker 3: I mean, if somebody, oh and you know, and this
Speaker 3: has happened before, there have been folks, you know, iconoclass,
Speaker 3: if somebody went and destroyed her image there in that
Speaker 3: shrine in Cuba, I would be obsensed. I would just
Speaker 3: I would be beside myself. I mean, it'd be like
Speaker 3: somebody killed you know, a family member. I mean, be
Speaker 3: on the next plane to get you know, you would
Speaker 3: have to console people. I mean, a four hundred year
Speaker 3: old you know, it would just be terrible. You know,
Speaker 3: it doesn't have all the hate wrapped into it that
Speaker 3: these you know, statues do in this sort of thing.
Speaker 3: So what I'm saying is I understand and that people
Speaker 3: have very tender feelings toward these material objects that they
Speaker 3: have had experiences around them that have bound them together.
Speaker 3: Religiare you know the binding that's the original you know
Speaker 3: root Latin root of religion you know, is to bind.
Speaker 3: You know, I get that. And so yeah, I'm not
Speaker 3: a reflexive iconoclast. You know, I'm a Catholic, I'm a
Speaker 3: you know, I'm also a you know, participate in these
Speaker 3: African inspired religious practices and stuff that you know that
Speaker 3: put a lot of you know, emphasis upon, you know,
Speaker 3: sacred material objects. So I am kind of I mean,
Speaker 3: it is kind of weird that me I would be
Speaker 3: involved in this and that, you know, and doctor Douglas,
Speaker 3: you know, but it's precisely because we know the power
Speaker 3: of these things, and the we're eyewitnesses to what happened here.
Speaker 3: You know that we know the power of it, and
Speaker 3: so how to be responsible for it. And so to
Speaker 3: take something like that that was so harmful and to
Speaker 3: be able to use its materials to transform them and
Speaker 3: to make something that's meaningful and beautiful and that expresses
Speaker 3: our community's values and that includes people rather than kind
Speaker 3: of sets people apart, you know, or kind of you know,
Speaker 3: symbolizing moments in our history where you know, over half
Speaker 3: the local population was completely debased, you know. To be
Speaker 3: able to take the material that that was part of
Speaker 3: that and transform it into something else, it's just it
Speaker 3: just seemed like it just has so much potential, you know.
Speaker 3: And and and then the name of the project is
Speaker 3: Swords into Plowshares, which comes from a verse from the
Speaker 3: prophet Isaiah that they shall turn their swords into plowshares,
Speaker 3: they shall turn their their spears into pruning hooks. So
Speaker 3: we'll take these implements of destruction and of violence, and
Speaker 3: we will transform them in to instruments of to cultivate,
Speaker 3: you know, sustenance, you know, uh, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: nutrients you know, for a community. I mean, it just
Speaker 3: you know, to just to just really transform it, you know,
Speaker 3: from from something so ugly you know, into something beautiful,
Speaker 3: you know. And we just thought, you know, let's let's
Speaker 3: take the chance. Let's try and do this. Let's do
Speaker 3: something that's never been done before, because none of these
Speaker 3: statues have ever been like, I don't think ever completely
Speaker 3: the Confederate ones anyway, have ever been completely destroyed, you know,
Speaker 3: like this. Most of them are just in storage somewhere.
Speaker 3: And we said, let's let's take this chance to transform.
Speaker 3: Let's be responsible first of all, and not send our
Speaker 3: toxic waste down the road to another community. And let's
Speaker 3: try to do something transformative, you know, for our community.
Speaker 3: And maybe this can also move the needle, you know,
Speaker 3: in a national and international conversation about art and the
Speaker 3: reparative values, you know, potential repair of values of art,
Speaker 3: you know, and community building, you know, and so in
Speaker 3: our you know, we're the swords into Plowsher's project. We're
Speaker 3: hoping to put out a request for proposals, you know,
Speaker 3: to artists this year in twenty twenty four, which is
Speaker 3: the one hundredth anniversary of when the Least statue was installed.
Speaker 3: You know, ideally, you know, fingers crossed, if you know,
Speaker 3: it would be wonderful if we could have a completed
Speaker 3: statue in twenty twenty seven, which would be the ten
Speaker 3: year anniversary of the United the Right Rally, you know,
Speaker 3: to to you know, to have something else to give
Speaker 3: back to our community. You know, that's a blasting value that,
Speaker 3: you know, and for us, it's important that we write
Speaker 3: our narrative. There were people who attacked us, you know,
Speaker 3: who tried to kind of imprint on us, you know,
Speaker 3: some sort of narrative about what we were about and
Speaker 3: also kind of you know, reverberated in a you know,
Speaker 3: national and international way. And we're really taking control of
Speaker 3: the narrative here. We're saying, you know, we we are
Speaker 3: going to say who we are and we're going to
Speaker 3: express that, you know, and we do value art, you know,
Speaker 3: we want it to be an art that reflects our values.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: I think this is a recognition that art does have power.
Speaker 2: It had the power to harm, It had the power
Speaker 2: to to bring great harm to this community. But it
Speaker 2: was you know, that art was harming people just by
Speaker 2: existing in that space, even before Unite the Right. And
Speaker 2: now those same materials have hopefully the power to bring
Speaker 2: some repair. Yeah, So it wasn't It wasn't just the
Speaker 2: practical you know, I think you were saying. It started
Speaker 2: out a sort of a practical question is what do
Speaker 2: you do with this large object? And so the practical
Speaker 2: answer is you reduce its size, you melt it down,
Speaker 2: You remove it, and you melt it down. But it's
Speaker 2: not just practical, right, there is there is incredible symbolic
Speaker 2: value in using that material, that metal, right that I
Speaker 2: think in some of the articles you all talked about
Speaker 2: as it was melting there were impurities in the metal.
Speaker 2: So as the statue is being melted down, the impurities
Speaker 2: are being extracted from it, it's being purified and now
Speaker 2: it can be repurposed and that's really beautiful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. Yeah, the slag getting pulled off the
Speaker 3: top and just yeah, just it was incredible, you know,
Speaker 3: to see for sure.
Speaker 2: And so at this stage, you guys are soliciting community input.
Speaker 2: I think there's a sort of a community survey out
Speaker 2: about sort of what parks people frequent, how they're using
Speaker 2: the parks, how they're engaging with the parks. And so
Speaker 2: this year there'll be a request for proposals for artists
Speaker 2: to sort of put forth their vision for this bronze.
Speaker 3: Right, and this is it's nice because this is all
Speaker 3: coinciding with the city if Charlottesville has for some time
Speaker 3: wanted to do a renovation of its downtown park. So
Speaker 3: this and this has been a long time coming that
Speaker 3: there are you know, sedated, you know, all of this
Speaker 3: drama with the with the statues, but it's just really
Speaker 3: a nice opportunity to just kind of for the community
Speaker 3: to just kind of take stock. It's like, Okay, we're
Speaker 3: you know, we're whatever, you know, going on seven years
Speaker 3: out from Unite the Right. You know, we're eight years
Speaker 3: out from you know, Zionist initial petition. You know, you
Speaker 3: know this this statue has been you know taken away,
Speaker 3: it has been melted, and it just feels like a
Speaker 3: literal and figurative clearing of the land. You know, it
Speaker 3: just feels like you know, people have asked, you know
Speaker 3: sometimes it's like, oh, there's you know, all that empty
Speaker 3: space at the parks, and I was like, yeah, isn't
Speaker 3: it nice. It's just kind of like I mean to
Speaker 3: just kind of I think it's nice to just have
Speaker 3: just push the pause button for you know, in terms
Speaker 3: of things that are there for several years, and just
Speaker 3: kind of allow our our minds to open, you know,
Speaker 3: just like the space itself, and just to just imagine
Speaker 3: what that space can look like. I think it's really
Speaker 3: instructive and I wish more communities could have the opportunity
Speaker 3: to do this. Actually yes, but you know, for instance,
Speaker 3: taking that survey you know that community members in Charlottesville
Speaker 3: are doing now about you know, yeah, how how do
Speaker 3: you know?
Speaker 2: Where?
Speaker 3: Where do you what parks you go to? What activities
Speaker 3: do you engage in there? What do you like? You know,
Speaker 3: what would you like to see more of? You know
Speaker 3: this sort of thing. It's it's great to you know,
Speaker 3: to consider this. You know that this is something that
Speaker 3: has been you know, America's uh uh you know, the
Speaker 3: United States is uh, you know, public parks has you
Speaker 3: know been something that you know since the nineteenth century
Speaker 3: is something that's that's been a real gem, you know
Speaker 3: in some of our our public spaces, you know, and
Speaker 3: in some of our cities, and you know, and this
Speaker 3: is something to you know, to celebrate, and it's it's
Speaker 3: nice to be able to kind of take stock and
Speaker 3: to really, you know, think about how public spaces can
Speaker 3: express our professed values, you.
Speaker 2: Know, instead of sort of reacting to hate, like taking
Speaker 2: a moment to envision not our reaction to or you know,
Speaker 2: what we don't want, but think about what we do
Speaker 2: want in that space exactly, and what would what would
Speaker 2: serve our community. And I think that's sort of the
Speaker 2: project is now, right, just sort of envisioning a positive
Speaker 2: future rather than trying to remediate a negative past.
Speaker 3: It's and it's so nice because I felt like we
Speaker 3: were fighting, fighting, fighting for so many years. You know,
Speaker 3: we're in court, or we're protesting, or we're going to
Speaker 3: lobby at the General Assembly or now we're going to
Speaker 3: city council. I mean, there was just you know, all
Speaker 3: you know, so so fraught, and so now it's just
Speaker 3: so free to like, oh, to be able to imagine,
Speaker 3: you know, and to be thinking forward. Yeah, And constructively, creatively.
Speaker 3: That's a great feeling.
Speaker 2: So how can people sort of keep up with Swords
Speaker 2: into Plowshares, stay up to date on the project and
Speaker 2: it's it's progress, and more importantly, how can they support
Speaker 2: Sords into plow Shares.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you can visit sipseville dot com. That's s
Speaker 3: I P C V I L L E dot com.
Speaker 3: So Sipcville that's Swords into Plowshares Ceville. And we have
Speaker 3: occasional updates there with news stories about what we're doing
Speaker 3: and upcoming meet things which will be happening at the
Speaker 3: Jefferson School where we'll be you know, kind of presenting
Speaker 3: results of of you know, surveys that we've done, you know,
Speaker 3: and uh and also visiting speakers who will be coming
Speaker 3: to talk about, you know, what what does art mean
Speaker 3: in public spaces? You know, So we'll be able to
Speaker 3: kind of you know, talk with uh, you know, some
Speaker 3: experts that have come in, you know, to advise us
Speaker 3: on you know, how to think about about what we
Speaker 3: want in our in our in our parks going forward.
Speaker 2: And can people make donations to SIP on the website?
Speaker 3: Yes, on the website there is a portal, right, there
Speaker 3: on on sipseyville dot com. Definitely welcome that as well.
Speaker 2: And those donations go towards for the the ultimate creation
Speaker 2: of this piece of art, correct, right, It is not
Speaker 2: cheap to work with that much more.
Speaker 3: It is not. Yeah, so we're we're you know, putting
Speaker 3: together you know, fun to pay the artists, you know,
Speaker 3: for the commissioning the artists. You know, we're also applying
Speaker 3: for you know, grants from foundations and this sort of
Speaker 3: thing too. But of course there are other expenses associated
Speaker 3: with you know, processing materials and yeah and all that.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, so that is s I P C V
Speaker 2: I L l E dot com slash donate to make
Speaker 2: sure that that artist gets paid. Absolutely well, Juliane, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining us today, and I'm looking
Speaker 2: forward to seeing our our new beautiful piece of art,
Speaker 2: hopefully by twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's great. Well, thank you for your interest, Mollie,
Speaker 3: and thank you to all the listeners and supporters out there.
Speaker 3: Means a lot to us that you know, your interest
Speaker 3: in us and and your support. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I think we all love those photos of Lee's melting face.
Speaker 3: It is icon. I gotta say it's iconic you know.
Speaker 3: I yeah, well always have that, have that memory. Thank
Speaker 3: you so much.
Speaker 1: All right, It could Happen here as a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website coolzonemedia dot com or check us out
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen Here,
Speaker 1: updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.