The Confederate memorial statue on the grounds of the Madison County Courthouse in downtown Huntsville is getting no love so far this week.
First, a vandal or vandals threw and spread blood-red color on the statue of a Confederate soldier Tuesday night. Then, no one in a line of citizens speaking about the statue defended it at Wednesday’s County Commission meeting. Commissioners control the land the statue sits on, and they want it moved, but state law says “no” and commissioners won’t break that despite volunteers’ offer to pay the $25,000 fine.
Glenn Dasher, a sculptor and professor of art at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, looked at the statue Wednesday at the request of AL.com. Dasher said first that he believed the color is a common deck stain fairly easy to remove. He later said it’s possible it is a high-tech coating much harder and more expensive to remove. A closer study will be needed to decide.
Dasher said the paint may have been tossed high up on the statue and it hit the sides while cascading down “like one big heave-ho” of paint. He also pointed to a footprint in glitter on the courthouse veranda beside the tree. Glitter was also scattered on the statue in some places.
Dasher said the statue of a Confederate soldier is granite, not marble, and the color could be removed with a pressure washer and some kind of abrasive substance if it is a common stain. “It can be done in place,” he said.
“This is not art,” Dasher said of the giant Confederate soldier. “This is political propaganda.” He said “cookie-cutter” statues like it were made and sold in the North and South after the Civil War. Towns on either side of the conflict could order them with a choice of belt buckles, hats and other fixtures.
Madison County commissioners heard another string of speakers on the statue at their meeting Wednesday. All of the speakers advocated its removal or at least covering. They included:
- Dr. Carlton Byrd, senior pastor at Oakwood University Church, who called the statue “a symbol of white supremacy.” Byrd reminded the commissioners of the statue of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, which was removed from the campus after Paterno lost his job in a child abuse scandal. “It was removed a year after his retirement because of the pain it caused,” Byrd said. “I urge you, my commissioners, to understand the pain that statue downstairs causes the African American community.”
- Katrina Kier, a descendant of slaves in Madison County, who said, “Now it is time to show our young people, all young people of all colors that this is a new day by going through with the removal of this monument.”
- Todd Noren-Hentz, pastor of Epworth United Methodist Church in Huntsville, who said the county has options to express its stated desire to move the monument. It can post a large sign beside the figure proclaiming the county wants it gone, or it can put a wooden box around the statue with large labels saying it is there because the state orders it.
- Rod Montgomery of Huntsville suggested other ways to move the statue now. One is to sell the small square of land the statue sits on to a non-profit organization, which could then legally move the statue. This is what Memphis did to move similar statues, he said.
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