Mammy memorial

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Ulric Stonewall Jackson Dunbar with a maquette of his proposal for the memorial,[1]
June 1923

Although never given an official name, a "Mammy memorial" was a proposed memorial to be located in the

mammys in the United States
.

The idea was reported as early as 1910 in a newspaper article.[2] A group called the "Mammy Memorial Institute", based in Athens, Georgia, sought donations from the public for the monument.[3] In 1923, Mississippi Senator John Sharp Williams introduced a bill for its construction that was backed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy[3] and Congressman Charles Manly Stedman from North Carolina made a speech in favour of it in the United States House of Representatives[4] which was cheered by representatives from both Republican and Democratic parties.[5]

Design proposals were submitted to the United Daughters of the Confederacy by sculptors and architects seeking the commission.

Ulric Stonewall Jackson Dunbar and Romanian/Hungarian-American George Julian Zolnay, known as the Sculptor of the Confederacy for the number of commissions he'd undertaken of Confederate subjects on behalf of Southern clients.[6]

The proposed monument was immediately condemned by African Americans and other groups such as the Women's Relief Corps of the

Chicago Defender published a cartoon showing a white southerner presenting plans for the monument to the hanging body of a lynching victim.[4]

Many commentators viewed the memorial as objectionable in itself[3] as well as a waste of money that could be better used improving the lives of living black people.[7] Petitions and letters opposed to the monument were sent to politicians, including ones sent to Vice-President Calvin Coolidge and House Speaker Frederick H. Gillett that carried the signatures of 2000 black women.[4] Ultimately, the controversy raised by the monument caused its bill to be dropped and no further action on it was taken.[4]

The monument would have been located on Massachusetts Avenue.[4][8] In 2002, a Statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk was erected on the site.[4]

See also

References

  1. ^
    ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved February 6, 2023.
  2. ^ Field, Hollis (May 29, 1910). "To Build a Monument to 'Ol' Black Mammy'". Chicago Tribune. p. 41.
  3. ^ a b c d Auslander, Mark (September 29, 2011). "We've Come a Long Way from the Effort to Memorialize the Slave Mammy". George Mason University. Retrieved August 17, 2015.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Horwitz, Tony (May 31, 2013). "The Mammy Washington Almost Had". The Atlantic. Retrieved August 17, 2015.
  5. ^ "Mammy Monument Proposal". collectio.ecu.edu. East Carolina University. Retrieved February 6, 2023.
  6. OCLC 1288670611.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  7. ISBN 978-0-674-02433-5
    .
  8. ^ Matthews, Lopez (April 4, 2013). "Celebrating the Faithful Colored Mammies of the South". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved August 17, 2015.
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