By JIM ROSS
The State Journal
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — To Carter Taylor Seaton, destroying a sculpture of a historic figure is not something to be done lightly. Or at all.
(Photo by Jim Ross)
“When the statue is a piece of art, tearing it down is a desecration regardless of what they were meant to memorialize,” said the Huntington resident, sculptor, author and recipient of the Governor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts.
“You don’t do that. You do something else that explains a conflicted position, but you don’t destroy a piece of art.”
Taylor, whose work has been exhibited at Tamarack and elsewhere, said such statues could perhaps be moved to less prominent places, but they must be preserved.
Removing a statue does not remove its subject from history, she said.
And what happens if a century from now, a political figure who is honored now falls out of favor, she asks. Will future generations remove or destroy the art created by this one to mark those people’s impact?
Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was born in Clarksburg in 1824. His father died when Jackson was young, leaving his mother destitute, and Jackson was sent to live with relatives.
Jackson owned six slaves during the 1850s, but he also set up and taught Sunday school classes for black children at a local church.
The statue at the Capitol originally stood at the former capitol, which burned in 1921, so it is older than the Capitol itself.
This is not the first time an objection has been made in West Virginia to honoring Jackson. A couple of years ago, a movement began on social media to request the Kanawha County Board of Education to change the name of Stonewall Jackson Middle School, formerly Stonewall Jackson High School. But many people in the community opposed changing the name, said Briana Warner, communications director for Kanawha County schools.
“According to records here, the online petition was never presented to the board or submitted to the board office for consideration. And, after receiving much support from the community to keep the name intact, the issue of changing the school’s name did not move forward,” she said.
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