LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- A group working to keep the John B. Castleman statue in Cherokee Triangle is calling for the city's office to come to a "compromise."
"We as the Friends of Louisville Public Art do not like this history revisionism, this cancel culture," Steve Wiser, one of the organizers of Friends of Louisville Public Art, said. "We think that history should be learned and not removed."
Wiser is asking the city to clean the graffiti off the bronze statue of the Confederate and U.S. Army soldier and leave it in its place in the roundabout in Cherokee Triangle and instead use the funds that would have been used to transport the statue to build a "civil rights memorial" outside the downtown library branch.
"We do think that Mayor Fischer has an opportunity for a win-win," Wiser said. "Create more civil rights memorials and make this a learning experience for the whole community."
The city's Landmark Commission voted 4-3 last May to remove the controversial statue to Cave Hill Cemetery. After the statue was first vandalized with orange paint following the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, Mayor Greg Fischer formed the Louisville Public Arts and Monuments Committee, which held several public meetings discussing the future of the statue and other controversial monuments throughout the city.
Fischer announced in August 2018 his decision to remove the statue. After the Cherokee Triangle Architectural Review Committee hit a 3-3 stalemate on the decision to remove the statue, the mayor's office filed an appeal with the Landmarks Commission, which voted to approve the statue's removal.
The statue has been vandalized several times since it was first marked in 2017.
"I say those individuals are ignorant of history, that they are vandals and they should be arrested," Wiser said.
Friends of Louisville Public Art (FOLPA) filed a lawsuit in June 2018 to block the statue's removal. Tuesday, the group's attorney, Steve Porter, said he is filing another brief arguing in support of the appeal.
In his brief, he argued those who voted in favor of removal of the statue were "subject to removal by the Mayor," which he claimed is a conflict of interest and that those voters should have recused themselves.
"There were city employees, city officers, and employees who voted in favor of removing the statue when their employer was the applicant," he said.
Porter also said the Landmark Commission chair did not allow for a serious discussion on the removal of the Castleman statue and used the Cherokee Triangle Architectural Review Committee's tie vote to not look further into what he claims are Castleman's merits.
"The Landmark Commission never looked at the whole issue of General Castleman and his background and his history and his life and why the statue was put up in the first place."
In a statement, Jean Porter, a spokesperson for Fischer's office, wrote: "As we’ve said, the Mayor is confident that the Landmarks Commission acted appropriately and made the right decision in supporting our decision to move the statue. Louisville must not maintain statues that serve as validating symbols for racist or bigoted ideology."
FOLPA has also put up a billboard in the Highlands touting Castleman's other accomplishments, which they said go beyond his service as a major in the Confederate Army. They said more emphasis needs to be placed on his time as a general in the U.S. Army along with his work with Louisville's parks system and in founding the American Saddlebred Horse Association.
"They only harp on just very minor two-and-a-half years of his life and not the other 73 years of dedicated service to this community," Wiser said.
Wiser said he would like to see the graffiti removed by Derby weekend.
Porter said the legal process could take several more months before it is played out.
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