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Inventory of American Sculpture

Database entries include sculptures from new Civil Rights District in Birmingham

by Caryn Houghton

[[image - photograph]]
Photo courtesy Inventory of American Sculpture
Kneeling Ministers, by Raymond Kaskey, greets visitors at one of the entrances of Birmingham's Civil Rights District.

Among the new additions to the Inventory of American Sculpture (IAS) database are several sculptures Alabama SOS! volunteers surveyed in Birmingham's Civil Rights District, established in 1992. A walk through the redesigned park now reveals a part of Birmingham's history through sculpture.

At one entrance, Kneeling Ministers emerges from a dome-shaped block of stone. Created by Raymond Kaskey from unpolished, white Russellville limestone, this 12-ton sculpture depicts three ministers in draped robes kneeling in prayer as a tribute to all clergy involved in the cause of civil rights. The center figure looks heavenward with arms extended downward, holding a book. The side figures pray with bowed heads and closed eyes.

At another entrance, one finds three memorials: one to Carrie Tuggle, who founded the Tuggle Institute, a school and orphanage; another to Pauline Bray Fletcher, the first African-American registered nurse of Alabama; and another to Julius Ellsberry, the first African-American Alabama man to die in World War II. Each granite memorial, fabricated by Clark Memorials in 1979, displays a carved portrait bust and a commemorative inscription.

Near the center of the park are various sculptures created by James Drake. Jailed Children (Children's March), a two-part, painted metal piece, features bronze figures of a boy and a girl facing a wall with an opening blocked by jail bars. This piece recalls the Children's March of May 1963 in which hundreds of students joined civil rights demonstrations.

A second Drake sculpture, Fire Hosing, illustrates the use of water hoses against demonstrators. The focal point of the piece shows water cannons pointed at two figures, a young man crouching low to the ground and a young woman standing huddled next to another wall.

Near one corner of the park is Carlo Roppa's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., originally dedicated January 20, 1986. This work- nearly 12 feet tall, including the bronze sculpture and rectangular marble base- shows King dressed in a three-piece suit and boots as he looks toward the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, the site of the 1963 bomb explosion that killed four young girls.

From this corner The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth can be seen in front of the new Civil Rights Institute. Created by John W. Rhoden in honor of Birmingham's civil rights freedom fighter, the sculpture presents a male figure, dressed in a suit, striding forward. The roughly modeled facial structures surround the eyes and reflect vision and hope.

The sculptures of the newly renovated Civil Rights District vividly illustrate, as Birmingham Councilwoman Antris Hinton said, "the greatest story Birmingham has to tell."


Caryn Houghton is a staff member at the Inventory of American Sculpture.

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