Two heroes from Arkansas are being honored with statues in the U.S. Capitol.
Daisy Bates, a civil rights leader, and Johnny Cash, the world-renowned singer, are set to represent Arkansas in Statuary Hall, the Capitol’s main exhibition space, featuring two statues from every state.
Bates’ statue is scheduled for installation this week, while the statue of Cash is set for display later this year.
Bates served as president of the Arkansas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for several years. In addition, she and her husband also published a weekly newspaper dedicated to the coverage of the civil rights movement.
With that background, she was the perfect mentor for the Little Rock Nine, the Black high school students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 when segregationists vowed to keep the school all-white, despite the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that segregated schools were unconstitutional. She helped organize the parents and the students for the monumental civil rights event.
Bates is depicted in the 8-foot-tall bronze statue with a newspaper in one hand, a notebook and pen in the other and a NAACP pin in her lapel.
“I can’t imagine any person more worthy than Daisy Bates of being immortalized in Statuary Hall,” Benjamin Victor, the sculptor chosen to create Bates’ statue, said in an interview with the University of Arkansas.
In her statue, Bates is seen with one foot stepping forward. “I wanted to show her in motion walking because she was an activist,” Victor said. “She stood up for civil rights in the face of the worst negativity and treatment that we’ve ever seen.”
Victor told The Associated Press that it is his hope his statue of Bates inspires people “to study Daisy Bates’ life and legacy.”
Arkansas’ then-Governor Orval Faubus deployed the National Guard to the Little Rock school to prevent the students from entering. Later, President Dwight Eisenhower had to send federal troops to Little Rock to escort the teenagers into the school.
Johnny Cash’s gravelly voice is known around the world, and now people who visit the Capitol from around the world will be able to see a statue of the singer who was born in Kingsland, Arkansas.
Cash’s statue, also 8 feet tall, shows him in a pensive mood with his head bowed, a guitar on his back and a Bible in his hand.
“That interior thoughtfulness was something that I really wanted to bring out in this sculpture,” Arkansas sculptor Kevin Kresse told The Associated Press. He said he believed that quality would serve as a counterbalance to the conflict in Congress.
Kresse told the University of Arkansas Little Rock that he “didn’t realize until I was well into the project that (Cash) was actually an ordained minister.”
The artist said his “biggest goal is to make sure the family is happy because they are the ones who know the subject the best.” Cash’s daughter Roseanne “had an emotional reaction to the piece,” Kresse said, which was “a very rewarding experience” for him.
The statues of Bates and Cash are replacing statutes of attorney Uriah Rose and Senator James Paul Clarke, who lived through the U.S. Civil War and its aftermath.
Monuments and artwork praising the Confederacy have come under intense scrutiny because of the racism usually entangled within the art and the subject.
Clarke is reported to have said, “The people of the South looked to the Democratic Party to preserve the white standards of civilization.”
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Democratic Party was associated with slavery and inequality, while the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, was seen as more progressive.
Clarke’s descendants have also championed his replacement in Statuary Hall. Clarke’s great-great-grandson wrote in an article in the Arkansas Times, “Regardless of the time in which Clarke lived, his statement regarding race was inexcusable, and the time has come to have a conversation about who should represent Arkansas in the U.S. Capitol for the time in which we live now. . . I must say, however, that I strongly hope that one of the new statues will be Daisy Bates or a member of the Little Rock Nine. In my opinion, these icons were among the greatest American heroes of the 20th century.”
