David Crockett – Memphis Flyer

West Virginia sculptor Jamie Lester will create the sculpture of West Tennessee frontiersman and statesman David Crockett for an iconic spot on the Tennessee State Capitol.

State lawmakers agreed to erect a statue of David Crockett on the capitol grounds in 2021. Efforts to do so go back to at least the creation of the David Crockett Commission in 2012. (Read our previous story on this here.)

Crockett’s statue will replace a statue of racist, segregationist newspaper editor and politician Edward Carmack. He was, among other things, the editor of the Memphis Commercial newspaper when he incited a mob against anti-lynching activist, journalist, editor, and business woman Ida B. Wells. The mob destroyed her newspaper office.

Carmack was shot and killed by political rivals in Nashville, near where his statue was erected in 1927. The statue was installed, however, by a prohibition group (Carmack was also a staunch prohibitionist) that thought his big-profile death could further their cause.

Protesters tore down Carmack’s statue in 2020 during the turmoil following the police killing of George Floyd. One of the 2021 bill’s sponsors, Sen. Steve Southerland (R-Morristown), even told The Chattanooga Times Free Press at the time, he “didn’t think it would be possible to remove Carmack.” The newspaper story said, Southerland “smiled and then added: ‘Someone removed it for us, so they did us a favor.’”

VANDALIA BRONZE

Lester and his company, Vandalia Bronze, were selected Tuesday by the State Capitol Commission (SCC). The vote came after several meetings of a group to find sculptors, receive proposals, and narrow down 28 proposals to the finalists for the SCC. That group of technical advisors included David Crockett experts, sculptors, legislators, state officials, Tennessee Arts Commission members, architects, and historians.

Photos credit: Jamie Lester/Vandalia Bronze

Lester and his team have produced projects for the World Golf Hall of Fame, the Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance, and he created a life-sized sculpture of actor Don Knotts for the city of Morgantown, West Virginia. His work also includes numerous sculptures of people in business, sports, politics, and religion.

Artists for the Crockett statue were scored in three categories. Lester scored highest of them all in each category. His proposal for Crockett shows the man as a “guardian of the frontier” standing atop a stone with his dogs Rattler and Tigger beside him. Crockett’s body for the statue will likely stand eight to nine feet tall, according to State Architect Ann McGauran.

Crockett’s dogs, it seemed, helped to win Lester’s design admiration and votes.

“I personally love the incorporation of the dogs,” said Tennessee Finance and Administration Commissioner Jim Bryson after the vote Tuesday. “I’m a dog person. I think the dogs make it really special.”

To this, McGauran said the dogs got plenty of discussion from the group of technical advisors working on the Crockett statue project.

The State Building Commission will soon vote on Lester’s contract. If approved, his team will deliver a one-third scale model of the final design. If the design is approved, the Crockett statue will be delivered and ready for installation on the south side of the capitol by 2026.

The statue of a historic West Tennessean is planned to rise at the Tennessee State Capitol where the statue of another historic but controversial West Tennessean recently fell.

State lawmakers agreed to erect a statue of David Crockett on the capitol grounds in 2021. Public efforts to do this go back as early as 2012. The idea caught on but was tabled by the legislature in the 2020 session.

Since the approval of the legislation in 2021, the process has moved along slowly and quietly. The State Building Commission approved the project during its meeting earlier this month. Even that vote was wrapped in a procedure that needed no debate, only the approval of the commission’s staff, which it had. That vote, however, only allowed for the commission of an artist to design, fabricate, and install the monument.

Legislation in 2012 created the David Crockett Commission. That board’s job was to find the ways and means necessary to create a statue of Crockett on the capitol grounds. Commission members were not to be paid nor reimbursed for travel.

The group was also supposed to find private backers. The law reads, “No state funds shall [be] expended for such project.” That changed with the 2021 bill. Taxpayers will now foot the $1 million bill for the Crockett statue.

Another notable difference between the commission law and the new law is the location of the statue. Back in 2012, lawmakers just wanted it on the grounds of the capitol. But that changed in 2018, lawmakers had a more specific site for the statue: the pedestal above the Motlow Tunnel on Charlotte Avenue on the south steps of the Capitol Building.

There was only one problem. When that legislation was introduced, another statue already sat at the location — the statue of racist, segregationist newspaper editor and politician Edward Carmack. The 2018 bill detailed the fact the Crockett statue was to be “in lieu of the Senator Edward Carmack statue” — that is, removing it and replacing it.

In his 1800s attire, curly, windswept hair and broad mustache, many who wandered by Carmack’s statue wondered aloud, “Why is there a statue of Mark Twain at the Tennessee capitol?”

But Carmack could not have been more different from Twain. For example, Carmack, as editor of the Memphis Commercial newspaper at the time, incited a mob against anti-lynching activist, journalist, editor, and business woman Ida B. Wells. The mob destroyed her newspaper office. She was away and stayed away, all according to the Tennessee State Museum.

Carmack was shot and killed by political rivals in Nashville, near where his statue was erected in 1927. It was installed, however, by a prohibition group (Carmack was also a staunch prohibitionist) that thought his big-profile death could further their cause.

With this, the GOP-led legislature must have faced a quandary in 2020 and 2021. How could they remove a huge historical marker from the capitol as they were fighting to keep so many others (like a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest)?

History, it seems, took care of that. Protestors tore down Carmack’s statue in 2020 during the turmoil following the police killing of George Floyd.

State officials said at the time the statue had been removed to another location. State law said it had to be replaced. But it’s unclear if it ever was.

But the suggestion that the statue had to be replaced by state law drew the (10-tweet) ire of pop star Taylor Swift.

“FYI, [Carmack] was a white supremacist newspaper editor who published pro-lynching editorials and incited the arson of the office of Ida B. Wells (who actually deserves a hero’s statue for her pioneering work in journalism and civil rights),” Swift tweeted at the time. “Replacing his statue is a waste of state funds and a waste of an opportunity to do the right thing.”

One of the 2021 bill’s sponsor, Sen. Steve Southerland (R-Morristown), even told The Chattanooga Times Free Press at the time, he “didn’t think it would be possible to remove Carmack.”

The newspaper story said, Southerland “then smiled and then added: ‘Someone removed it for us, so they did us a favor.’”