LOUISVILLE (WHAS11) — Mayor Greg Fischer announced the city plans to move a statue of the Confederate officer and President of the Board of Park Commissioners John Breckinridge Castleman from the Cherokee Triangle neighborhood and the George Dennison Prentice statue from outside the Louisville Free Public Library.
Mayor Fischer said appropriate relocations will be explored. The city is, for example, in conversation with Cave Hill Cemetery about moving the statues to their family burial grounds in Cave Hill. There are legal and financial issues to address with the moves--like, for Castleman, a review by the Cherokee Triangle Preservation District. If no other suitable sites are found, the statues will go into storage.
“To think that this is where we are now is really sad,” said Don Harris who lives near Cherokee Triangle and believes Castleman should stay.
“People are trying to rewrite history and change history and I think history is history. Yes, there are aspects of it that are ugly, and that's how we learn from it and become better people,” he told WHAS 11 News.
The goal is to have any issues resolved and the statues moved by the end of 2018.
The Mayor’s decision comes after a review of recommendations by a Public Art and Monuments Advisory Committee that he appointed late 2017. They were created to develop a guiding set of principles for evaluating existing and future public art and monuments in the city.
“Our Public Art and Monuments committee worked very hard, in cooperation with citizens, to develop thoughtful principles to help ensure that our public art and monuments respect our history but reflect the values of today,” Fischer said. “I support those principles, and I used the criteria laid out in their report to make this decision about the Castleman and Prentice statues."
“I don't think we should destroy them, I think that cemeteries, museums are the proper place for them and anyone wanting to learn history can still go to those places and see them,” said Dr. Clayton Dewey who was on that committee.
He believes these statues should be in cemeteries or museums.
“It was not our charge to make any decisions whatsoever but just to come up with a set of principles that all of the citizens of Louisville could be comfortable with,” he explained.
Of 400 pieces of art, Clayton's group found only two monuments with direct ties to the Confederacy and should be questioned: Castleman and Prentice.
George Prentice was a newspaper publisher and wrote pro-slavery and anti-immigration editorials.
Castleman was a Confederate Officer and then switched to the U.S. Army. He's s also is known for helping create Louisville parks, which he then segregated.
“You should never delete history, but the statues, they speak to people and they say something about who we are, and leaving them up I think was sending the wrong message to who we are,” said Dr. Clayton.
Fischer said the city must not maintain statues that serve as validating symbols for racist or bigoted ideology and that is why the Confederate statue near UofL was moved two years ago.
“While Castleman was honored for contributions to the community, it cannot be ignored that he also fought to continue the horrific and brutal slavery of men, women and children; heralded that part of his life in his autobiography; and had his coffin draped with both a U.S. and Confederate flag,” he said. “And while Prentice was founder and long-time editor of the Louisville Journal newspaper, he used that platform to advocate an anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant message that led to the 1865 Bloody Monday riot where 22 people were killed.”
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