Political Statement or Artistic Embellishment? And how does it (mis) represent history?

I had to read an essay by Suzan Lori-Parks last semester, and I loved it.  She was discussing how in the writings of some of her plays (in particular The America Play) she, rather than rewriting history, tries to “re-member it.”  She has claimed to be “obsessed with resurrecting” things of the past and utilizes the self-created concept of “Rep and Rev”- that is repetition and revision- to tell her story.  Some criticized her for having a contorted perception of black experience. One critic, Jean Young wrote that, “Parks’ slippery interpretation of the historical record surrounding the tragedy of Venus is in and of itself a tragedy.” Parks elegantly responded, “It’s insulting when people say my plays are about what it’s about to be black—as if that’s all we think about, as if our life is not about race. It’s about being alive.”  Admittedly, when I read The America Play, I thought it was strange- but I really dug Parks’ unusual approach to writing a sort of poetic dialogue with weirdly wonderful musicality.  She sets The America Play in “a great hole in the middle of nowhere” and “the hole is an exact replica of The Great Hole of History”.  She aims to, rather than rewrite and dramatize the story of Lincoln’s assassination, repeat the act and revise it to help her audience figure it out the history, or more specifically the African-American history- that she feels is missing.

I for some reason, keep thinking about Parks' essay as I was reading over the Austin and Butler articles.  Her desire to “re-member history”, along with thinking about the tweaking of a performative act that could be interpreted as clever or controversial, led me to reflect on a story from a podcast called Revisionist History by the brilliant Malcolm Gladwell.  It’s called “The Foot Soldier of Birmingham.” It’s about a statue called “Foot Solider.”

Before I go on, I’d like to say what I hope is obvious if you know me as an artist/human being-  none of my narrative is commentary on the Civil Rights Movement itself. I am all too aware that there were and are way too many horrific stories of abuse of power and not enough stories of courageous nonviolent resistance. “The Foot Soldier of Birmingham” tells the story of what was happening all over the place in the South in the sixties.  Sadly, with our current President and a country in turmoil when it comes to race, its themes are still commonplace today. But here’s where it gets weird- it didn’t tell the truth of that particular moment. And by failing to tell the truth of that specific occasion, I think it lends itself to a verisimilitude about who we are as a society in precarity and why we tell stories in the way that we do.   

So, the picture below was taken by photographer Bill Hudson on the day of a protest in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963- a day when Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was scheduled to be speaking.  Pretty messed up, right? 

Fast forward to 1995- when an artist named Ronald McDowell (Mac) unveiled the statue, “Foot Soldier” which had been commissioned by the first black mayor of Birmingham.   Mac, while quirky, is no hack- he’s done artwork for many famous folks, including Michael Jackson.  This statue is powerful and the most popular in the park where it stands.  Steve Wonder was one of the first people to see (or touch in his case) the sculpture, and while controversial to some, the artwork was ultimately well-received.

So, what’s the problem?

Well, the research.  And the fact that Mac chose to ignore what actually happened. 

Interviews revealed that Dick Middleton a member of Birmingham’s K-9 unit in the sixties, the cop in the photograph, was actually trying to hold the German Shepard back- not “sic” him on the African American youth.  Furthermore, the young man in the photo, Walter Gasden, said many things in an interview that complicated the creation of the statue.  Gasden claims:

• "I wasn't a foot soldier"
• He just wanted to see Martin Luther King, Jr., because a friend suggested it to him·        
• “I wasn’t a foot soldier”
• In answer to the question, "What benefits did your family receive from the Civil Rights Movement?"  He answers, "None."
• He claims that the statue doesn't look like him, saying, "It looks like a totally different boy.  That looks like an African boy.  The features.  The lips, the size.  You take a look at the picture there, and the statue there, the boy's short: I was tall for my age."
• He claims that he took issue with the photo not in the fact that it made him famous, but that it got him in trouble for skipping school.

Weird, right?  You should listen to the interview.  You’ll feel for the interviewer, who thought she was interviewing a hero of the Civil Rights Movement, but, “instead, she’s getting a grumpy old man still wedded to some of the oldest and most awkward of Black prejudices.”

So, the story of the picture being reproduced into a piece of public art suddenly becomes way more complicated. When asked about not replicating the sculpture with historical accuracy, Mac commented that he, “did that on purpose.”  Malcolm Gladwell said to Mac, “There’s a little bit of mischief in that, in your recreation of that photo. You’re, you were using that opportunity to make a much broader, kind of subversive point.”  To which Mac responded, “I may be.”

By creating this sculpture, Mac was exercising his right to free speech- Arendt’s “right to have rights” being a performative exercise.  By creating art as he saw fit, he was utilizing his freedom and arguably, the ”potential that waits for its exercise.”  Was this a way of “making and changing the world in equal terms”? The creation of the sculpture has been made into a “yes, this happened” reality or even more so, the “this is how it happened reality.  Was this his intent? Is he trying, like Parks to “re-member” history?

Here’s what I can gather- the primary act of the performative power (or performativity) isn’t the initial taking of the photograph in Birmingham that day- but in the rather acts of recreation and circulation that took place after.  This photo was circulated in the Alabama paper, then in subsequent national publications.  It became iconic.  The duplication could, I suppose be considered a reproduction that represents the norms of the sixties.  As such, did Mac’s intentional recreation of the photo in his sculpture be considered a political act?

I think we also have to ask  why the historians of the civil rights adopted that image, reconfigured it from its original context (which, to be fair, was still about the violence convoying civil rights protesters) and reproducing it to their own communique.  For example, the mayor and a few others knew Mac was a bit of a character, they didn’t bother to examine his resume (to realize that he’d never sculpted before!), and gave him carte blanche to create the statue.  Did they know, on some level, that a re-imagining of history may occur?

I guess I’ll wrap up by saying, I agree with what Mac did- to a point.  I agree, because as I said earlier, we aren’t in a great place with race in our country right now.  We cannot- and should not- ever forget the atrocities committed against African Americans in our country.  Mac was demonstrating a time in history where people were experiencing appalling police brutality when exercising their freedom to peacefully assemble.  But his work isn’t historically accurate.  We already know (or should) how much of our American history has been told with inaccuracy.  Do we want to know exactly how things were?  Or is it easier to “re-member” instead?

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/14-the-foot-soldier-of-birmingham