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“Ma Is in the Park”: Memory, Identity, and the Bethune Memorial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2017

JENNY WOODLEY
JENNY WOODLEY*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Languages and International Studies, Nottingham Trent University. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

The Bethune Memorial, in Washington, DC's Lincoln Park, was erected to celebrate the life and achievements of civil rights leader and educator Mary McLeod Bethune. When it was dedicated in 1974 it became the first monument to an African American, and the first to a woman, on federal land in the capital. This article interprets the monument and its accompanying discourses. It examines how race and gender are constructed in the memorial, and what this suggests about the creation of a collective memory and identity. Bethune was remembered as an American, a black American, and a black American woman. The article explores the racial and gendered tensions in the commemoration, and how the statue both reinforced and challenged a national American memory.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , May 2018 , pp. 474 - 502
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2017 

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References

1 Letter, Eloise Moreland to Dorothy Height, 16 July 1974, National Archive for Black Women's History, Records of the National Council of Negro Women, Series 8, Box 6, Folder 82. Hereafter NABWH 001, followed by series, box and folder.

2 McCluskey, Audrey Thomas, “Introduction,” in McCluskey, Audrey Thomas and Smith, Elaine M., eds., Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 3–19, 5Google Scholar.

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5 The plan was first mooted in September 1958. See Minutes of Post-convention Meeting, 16 Nov. 1958, NABWH 001, S3, B1, F13.

6 It is not clear if Lincoln Park was proposed as a site by the NCNW or if this was suggested to them. Dolphin G. Thompson, from a local public-relations firm, claims that he had the idea of erecting a statue in Lincoln Park to a famous African American, and then suggested it to the NCNW. “Dolphin G. Thompson, Man behind Bethune Memorial Project,” Washington Sun, 12 July 1974, NABWH 001, S8, B7, F89. It has not been possible to corroborate his story, but he did work with the NCNW during the early years of the Bethune Memorial project.

7 Copy from Congressional Record; Public Law 86–484, H. J. Res. 502, 1 June 1960, NABWH 001, S8, B7, F102.

8 Letter to supporters, June 1971, informing them of the donation from Women Societies of Christian Service and Wesleyan Guild of Women's Division, Board of Missions of the United Methodist Church, NABWH 001, S8, B4, F57.

9 Copy from Congressional Record, 17 Aug. 1959, NABWH 001, S8, B7, F102.

10 Congressional Record – Senate, CR-1962-1005; 5 Oct. 1962, 22461–62.

11 Congressional Record – Extensions of Remarks, CR-1971-0722; 22 July 1971, 26911. See also “Dr. Bethune: Remarkable Woman,” Herald-Journal, 28 July 1971, 3.

12 In 1943 Bethune successfully challenged allegations from Representative Martin Dies that she was a communist. Hanson, Joyce Ann, Mary McLeod Bethune and Black Women's Political Activism (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003), 187–88Google Scholar. Copy from Congressional Record, 19 July 1971, NABWH 001, S8, B7, F105.

13 He would go on to make a model of John F. Kennedy for Washington, DC's Kennedy Center.

14 The shortlist also included Inge Hardison and James P. Lewis.

15 Letter from David Finley, chairman, Commission of Fine Arts, to D. G. Thompson, 24 May 1961, Folder Mary McLeod Bethune Monument 1960 to 1973, Box 99, Project Files, Entry A1 17A, Records of the Commission of Fine Arts, Record Group 66 (RG 66); National Archives Building, Washington, DC (NAB). Hereafter Bethune, Box 99, RG 66, NAB.

16 In fact, Barthé had produced a number of monumental sculptures. Bethune Memorial – Discussion on Tuesday, 18 June 1963; Bethune, Box 99, RG 66, NAB. There was some input from an African American on the artistic dimensions of the project. The NCNW hired architect David R. Byrd, who retained Hilyard Robinson, an African American architect, as a design consultant. After Byrd left Washington in 1966, Robinson became primary architect for the project. National Park Service, Cultural Landscapes Inventory, 2003 (revised edn, 2009); Lincoln Park, National Capital Parks – East (hereafter NPS 2009), 41.

17 Compare to Anne Beadenkopf's oil painting (which now hangs in the Bethune Council House in Washington, DC) from 1953, and Mary McLeod Bethune by Betsy Graves Reyneau. Henkes, Robert, Portraits of Famous American Women: An Analysis of Various Artists’ Renderings of Thirteen Admired Figures (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1997), 27–35Google Scholar.

18 This was Berks's medium of choice and perhaps a reason the NCNW decided to commission him to make its sculpture.

19 It is referred to by Ruffins and Monk, and discussed in more detail by Savage. However, Romano and Raiford's collection of essays on civil rights memorialization, for example, does not mention Bethune. O. J. Dwyer's insightful essay on the topic overlooks it, despite his discussion of the ways in which women's activism has been commemorated and misremembered. Ruffins, Faith Davis, “‘Lifting as We Climb’: Black Women and the Preservation of African American History and Culture,” Gender & History, 6, 3, (Nov. 1994), 376–96, 385CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Monk, Janice, “Gender in the Landscape: Expressions of Power and Meaning,” in Anderson, K. and Gale, F., eds., Cultural Geographies (Melbourne: Longman, 1999), 154–72, 155Google Scholar. Savage, Kirk, Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 265Google Scholar. Romano, Renee and Raiford, Leigh, eds., The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006)Google Scholar. Dwyer, O. J., “Interpreting the Civil Rights Movement: Place, Memory, and Conflict,” Professional Geographer, 52 (2000), 660–71, 664Google Scholar.

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21 See, for example, Bodnar's study of the conflict between vernacular and official memories. Bodnar, John, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

22 On the Freedmen's Memorial see Savage, Kirk, Standing Soldier, Kneeling Slave: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Holzer, Harold, Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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25 Dorothy Height, Audio Recording Transcription, Dedication.

26 “Bethune Statue Updates History,” Afro American, 13 July 1974, NABWH 001, S8, B7, F89.

27 When the plans were discussed by the National Capital Planning Commission some on the committee questioned whether Lincoln should be moved, with one member joking, somewhat inappropriately, “He might not like what he sees the other way.” National Capital Planning Commission Meeting, Open Session, 7 April 1967, Folder April–June 1967, Transcripts of Proceedings and Minutes of Meetings, 1924–99, Box 100, Records of the National Capital Planning Commission, RG 328, NAB.

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29 “I Leave You Love, I Leave You Hope,” fundraising leaflet, n.d., NABWH 001, S8, B2, F17.

30 “I Leave You Love.”

31 Bethune Memorial – Discussion on Tuesday, 18 June 1963.

32 Savage, Monument Wars, 265.

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40 Congressional Record – House, CR-1960-0330, 30 March 1960, 6975.

41 Height quoted in Congressional Record – House, CR-1960-0330; 30 March 1960, 6975.

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45 Letter from Frieda Armstrong, 30 Nov. 1970, NABWH 001, S8, B5, F73.

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49 Task Force on Dedication, Minutes of Meeting, 27–29 Dec. 1973, NABWH 001, S8, B14, F260.

50 Invitation to Black Women's Institute Bethune Memorial Symposia, 1974, NABWH 001, S8, B6, F75.

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56 “I Leave You Love.”

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58 Memo from Height to organization co-sponsors, 10 June 1974, NABWH 001, S8, B6, F75.

59 Bethune herself was active in the preservation and promotion of African American history, serving as president of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. She believed that knowledge about the black past could inculcate black pride, which was crucial to African American advancement. See Bethune, Mary McLeod, “Clarifying Our Vision with the Facts,” Journal of Negro History, 23, 1 (Jan. 1938), 10–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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62 Letter from Frieda Armstrong, 30 Nov. 1970, letter from Robert Held, 30 Dec. 1971, NABWH 001, S8, B5, F73.

63 Letter from Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm to NCNW members, Nov. 1970, NABWH 001, S8, B4, F56.

64 Flyer, Bethune Memorial Fund Drive, n.d., c.1962, NABWH 001, S8, B2, F17.

65 Living memorials became increasingly popular in the US after World War II. See Shanken, Andrew M., “Planning Memory: Living Memorials in the United States during World War II,” Art Bulletin, 84, 1 (March 2002), 130–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Letter, Hilyard Robinson to Dorothy Height, 19 June 1963, NABWH 001, S8, B10, F217.

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68 Jaffe, Harry S. and Sherwood, Tom, Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), 19, 119Google Scholar.

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71 For a discussion of Washington in the 1960s and 1970s see, for example, Jaffe and Sherwood; Gillette, Howard, Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hopkinson, Natalie, Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012)Google Scholar.

72 Letter, Robert F. Kreinheder to T. Sutton Jett, 24 Feb. 1967, Folder Lincoln Park Reconstruction April 1967, Box 87, Project Files, Entry A1 17A, Records of the Commission of Fine Arts, Record Group 66, NAB.

73 These changes were overseen by the NPS and were funded by a million-dollar grant from the Downtown Parks for the Bicentennial Program, established in anticipation of the 1976 Bicentennial. NPS 2009, 19.

74 On the freeway dispute see, for example, “Freeway Site Dispute Goes to White House,” Capitol Hill News, Feb. 1962, Bethune, Box 99, RG 66, NAB.

75 Letter, Chisholm to NCNW members, Nov. 1970.

76 “Task Force Report on Special Activities,” c. Dec. 1973, NABWH 001, S8, B14, F260.

77 “Planning Memo,” 29 June 1974, NABWH 001, S8, B6, F75.

78 “Bethune Statue Unveiled before Thousands,” Afro American, 13 July 1974, NABWH 001, S8, B7, F89.

79 “Drums, Flutes Spark Welcome,” Washington Post, 11 July 1974, B1.

80 Further research needs to be done on the reception and continued role of the memorial, both in terms of a local community and more broadly.

81 NPS 2009, 5.

82 One notable example is the statue of Frederick Douglass in Rochester, New York, which was erected in 1899.

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95 Bethune Memorial – Discussion on Tuesday, 18 June 1963.

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100 The extent to which the viewer is given this impression depends on the angle from which the memorial is viewed.

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102 Time commemorative issue, 10 July 1974, NABWH 001, S8, B2, F17.

103 John H. Murphy III, “Bethune Memorial Unveiled as 98th Birthday Observed,” Baltimore Afro-American, 17 July 1973, 8.

104 Hanson, 96. See also Smith, “Introduction,” 131–35.

105 White, Too Heavy, 201.

106 Height quoted from Report of Consultation of Problems of Negro Women, President's Commission on the Status of Women, 19 April 1963. Daniel Geary, “The Moynihan Report: An Annotated Version,” The Atlantic, 14 Sept. 2015.

107 White, Too Heavy a Load, 201.

108 “Memories of Mary McLeod Bethune,” Washington Post, 12 July 1974, D1.

109 Bethune Memorial – Discussion on Tuesday, 18 June 1963. Height recounts in her autobiography that Berks used a composite sketch for the boy but wanted a life model for the girl, which suggests that he placed particular importance on this figure. Height, Open Wide the Gates, 214.

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116 Copy from Congressional Record, 19 July 1971, NABWH 001, S8, B7, F105.

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122 Height, Audio Recording Transcription.

123 This still seems to be the case, as it is the NCNW which leads the annual birthday celebration in Lincoln Park. At the ceremony in 2015 the author observed that the audience was predominantly made up of black women.

124 Hanson, Mary McLeod Bethune, 104.

125 Ibid., 199.

126 White, Too Heavy a Load, 158; 206.

127 McCluskey, “Introduction,” 7.

128 Rosenzweig, Roy and Thelen, David, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 149Google Scholar.

129 Letter from Height to President of Bethune-Cookman College, 3 May 1973, NABWH 001, S8, B2, F16.

130 Covering letter from Height to Mr Udall for progress report as presented to the Secretary of the Interior, 25 May 1965, NABWH 001, S8, B10, F209.

131 Kammen, Michael, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (New York: Knopf, 1991), 3Google Scholar.