Monumental Resistance

“Take ‘Em Down!” That was the cry in 2017 as activists rallied to remove Confederate memorials in Memphis, including the grand statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest in what is now called Medical District Park. A year later, after more protests, legal challenges, and political maneuvers, the statues came down. In A Fight for Visibility, Donna Reeves explores the longer history that led to this moment. This tight, engaging book analyzes race, public space, and historical memory in Memphis.

Reeves earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Memphis. She answered questions via email from Chapter 16:

Chapter 16: A central thread in A Fight for Visibility is that public monuments evoke different meanings to different people. When the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest was erected in 1905, what did it mean to white Memphians? 

Donna Reeves: In the book I note that monuments like the one to Nathan B. Forrest serve as mascots of white supremacy. The people who interacted with the monument in 1905 saw it as a symbol of all that was right with the antebellum South and the Civil War – namely, that white men were in charge socially, politically, and economically. Furthermore, the statues served as a rebuke of Reconstruction and its goals of a diverse government.

Chapter 16: You write extensively about the Cotton Makers Jubilee, a Black counterpoint to the white Cotton Carnival. Why did the Cotton Makers Jubilee begin? Why was it important to Black people in Memphis?

Reeves: The Cotton Makers Jubilee was the brainchild of Ethyl and R.Q. Venson, two residents of Memphis. Interestingly, what sparked the idea was a comment from their nephew Quincy. The Vensons attended the Cotton Carnival, which local leaders billed as the “Greatest Party in the South.” The carnival was a celebration of cotton and agriculture in the face of falling cotton prices, the Great Depression, and increased federal involvement in local politics because of the New Deal. The early carnivals had Old South themes. There were women dressed as “mammies”; Black men pulled the floats; and children were even paid to be “pickaninnies.” The only role that Black people had was of servant and/or entertainer, providing a warm and comfortable memory of a time that they only knew about through the memories of their parents or grandparents.

Young Quincy attended one of these carnivals and told his aunt and uncle that he did not like it because, “all the Black men were mules.” Ethyl and R.Q. began to examine the roles of Black people in the carnival and decided that these servant roles were unacceptable. They wanted to showcase a modern image of Black Americans.

Chapter 16: By the 1960s, the Cotton Makers Jubilee engendered some controversy within the Black community. Why?

Reeves: Malcolm X made the distinction between segregationist and separatist. Segregation was about white control over where non-whites could sit on a bus, attend school, buy homes, and live their lives. Separatism is about choosing to create Black institutions with a focus on the experiences of Black Americans. The creation of the Black-focused institutions seemed to be in direct conflict with the work of groups like the NAACP, which fought for desegregation. For leaders of the NAACP, the Cotton Makers Jubilee seemed like a relic from the past that needed to end.

Chapter 16: Well prior to the “Take ‘Em Down” movement, Black Memphians objected to the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue. When did this resistance take place, and what did it look like?

Reeves: There were a number of protests in defiance of the statue. An activist named Isaac Richmond organized a protest in the early 1970s, and an organization called Inward Journey held another protest in the early 1990s. Isaac Richmond acted as a one-man agitator; there was little support within the community for him or his protest. Inward Journey’s demonstration at the monument was not exactly a call to take the Forrest statue down. It was more of a cultural event to celebrate Black achievement in the face of policies that supported the existence of Confederate statues in the city.

Chapter 16: In the past decade, over 300 Confederate monuments and memorials have been removed. Some have objected that taking down statues is erasing history. From your perspective as a historian of race and public memory, how do you respond to that accusation?

Reeves: The statues themselves are an attempt to erase history. They erase the narratives of Black Americans who survived slavery. The statues masked the humanity of the enslaved and their freedmen children by making them into caricatures who embraced their role of servant to white people.

Chapter 16: You defended your dissertation on this topic in 2008. (Full disclosure: A younger, thinner, more thickly coiffed version of me served on the Ph.D. committee.) Can you describe this long journey from dissertation to book?

Reeves: Whew! Another member of the committee, Dr. Janaan Sherman, once told me, “God laughs while the rest of us make plans.” I think that is a line from a John Lennon tune, but she spoke the truth. I have been through a lot since 2008. I have worked in corporate America, and I worked for a for-profit college where I earned another Master’s degree. Then I worked for a mortgage loan company and finally landed in the public school system in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Throughout all of these different roles, I always kept my dissertation in the back of my mind. I guess it was like an albatross (jk, not really). I knew I had to complete this project, or all that time and money spent in graduate school was for naught.