Uncle Jack the Good Darky (1927) is a statue of an old, bent over black man by American sculptor Hans Schuler. The words under the statue said:
Erected by the city of Natchitoches in grateful recognition of the arduous and faithful services of the good darkies of Louisiana.
It was the brainchild of Jackson L. “Uncle Jack” Bryan, cotton grower and banker. Time magazine said he:
had been lulled to sleep in his babyhood by Negro spirituals, and had played with little slave boys on his father’s old plantation, so he recently felt the urge to do something big for the Negro.
Meanwhile the only hospital in town would not admit Negroes, not even the spiritual-singing kind.
The New York Times:
Many white people in the parish have been nursed or served by the old-time “uncles” and “aunties,” and a warm regard remains on each side.
The Natchitoches Rotary Club said the statue:
express[es] the general Southern sentiment toward the faithful old slaves who took care of their masters’ wives and children and homes while the masters were away fighting to hold them in slavery.
National Geographic had several pictures of it and said:
A visit to Natchitoches was not complete without a visit to the statue.
One black man, P. Colfax Rameau of Birmingham, said:
Do not think it will be an insult to the modern, Christian negro. He will only say deep in his heart, “I wish there were more white men in the South of the cloth of the Honorable J. L. Bryan, and mob violence would soon be history for unborn white and black boys and girls to read.”
But not all blacks remember it quite that way. Pearl Payne, who was nine when the statue went up, remembered that blacks:
didn’t appreciate it. They took it for nothing good. There was controversy. It had a negative effect on our people.
Ed Ward, a black businessman who grew up in Natchitoches in the 1950s, said:
I recall ire and dismay in the black community. It brought forth negative feelings because it promoted a subservient and menial view of the race.
Ebony magazine called it “a symbol of degradation” and wanted it torn down.
Apparently the Klan did not like it either: the statue was twice covered in white paint and once had a cross burning.
In 1968 the mayor received a bomb threat. So in the dead of night he sent city workers to tear it down. Bryan’s daughter, Joy Bryan Ducournau, got wind of it and ran out to stop them, throwing a fit. They moved the statue, all six tons of it, to the airport to store it.
Ducournau reportedly received many requests for it, one even from the Smithsonian Institution. In the end she gave it to the Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge, where it stands to this day greeting visitors.
In 1974 they covered over the words about darkies to say only this:
Donated to the Rural Life Museum by Mrs. Jo Bryan Ducournau.
See also:
*cue fountain of vomit*
LikeLike
Cosign Ankhesen Mie. Wow, just wow.
LikeLike
“Erected by the city of Natchitoches in grateful recognition of the arduous and faithful services of the good darkies of Louisiana.”
Smh & lmao at the same time.
LikeLike
Wait, what?
lol@ smh & lmao!!!!
And it still stands. ha!!
What was that ‘Abagond’ said in another thread, American history, “a skinhead’s wet dream”. Indeed.
LikeLike
Legendary delusion. Seriously? What does it take to make yourself believe people were “happy” to be “less then”. “The Good Darky”, you mean someone who had little choice but to be subjected to a life of dehumanizing servitude but smile and suck it up in order to SURVIVE? (not just “food on table survive, I’m talking avoiding being beaten to death, lynched, buried alive, hacked to pieces survive, people often underestimate the meaning of that word) And you try to convince yourself that this is “warm regard” when you receive a “don’t want any trouble” smile, that’s just selfishness and denial at it’s finest.
Whats sad is that today, when racism is pointed out in the U.S by non-whites, its treated like its a unicorn. Oh, you hear about it, you read about it, but surely it cannot be, “this horse just has some kind of spiny calcium growth protruding from its forehead.” No! It’s a freakin’ unicorn!
Yes, this does conjure up the urge to vomit.
LikeLike
The interesting thing is that Jackson Bryan probably thought he really was doing darkies a great favor. I really doubt that his underlying scheme was to stick it to the Black man with a big demeaning statue. However, he was so much possessed by the zeitgeist, that even his would-be good, proved to be rotten. It’s a fascinating example of how a racist system permeates every aspect of a racist society—even art and philanthropy corrupted ad turn to poison.
LikeLike
*Add my bucket of vomit to the pool*
This just reminds me why I’m a angry black man.
LikeLike
@King
Aye, you said it better than i ever could.
Sadly, when slavery comes up in a conversation, it’s always about the cruel treatment and the harsh life of the slaves.
But the most dangerous and fascinating asset of slavery is its corruptive pervasive influence on the mind of men.
LikeLike
A very fine example of racism in USA. I mean, “darkies”? WTF?
Do not take it down. It is a good reminder of a white man who wanted to do something good for the N****. That should make every man to think and for a very long time indeed.
LikeLike
The statue is still standing there now??
… speechless…
LikeLike
The statue represents a human being subjugated by another. How’s there any honor in that?
LikeLike
The statue should have gone to the Smithsonian to be displayed in the context and with the original inscription. The display should be a reminder how Blacks were thought of. Believe it or not there are many including young Black folk who have no idea what the antebellum south was like, since it is being romanticized and rehabilitated among those who think Southern “Heritage” is worth preserving.
I am not for erasing this type of art, because when done so you have less evidence to point too. I am not for displaying it as for the public good, either; but keep those songs, murals, statues and literature where the N word is prevalent, so there never can be said that racism doesn’t or didn’t exist.
LikeLike
Hathor, I agree with almost everything you said. However, you stated “how Blacks were thought of” as if it’s in the past. I personally think that we are still thought of in that manner. But other than that I agree. Let’s not be like the state of Texas and pretend unpleasant chapters in our history don’t exist so we’ll just rename and change those events that make us uncomfortable. I’m a teacher and it’s shocking how much of our history our young Black kids don’t know. It’s like they are completely oblivious. I blame a lot of it on the parents because they are not talking to their kids. Unfortunately, Black parents do not have the option of sitting back and letting the schools teach Black history. Schools (at least here in the US) still do a very pathetic job in teaching history. The history of non-whites is more than likely not going to be included at all. My mother had to talk to me about the “good old days” because my teachers sure as hell weren’t doing it.
LikeLike
And before someone starts no this is not a “let’s hate whitey” rant! Black history is a lot deeper than that.
LikeLike
What I found interesting is that the powers that be had the presence of mind to
1. Change the words
but NOT
2. Remove the statue altogether.
Here I am reminded of Fanon who suggests racism is never ‘static’, forever changing and beguiling its victims.
LikeLike
J:
Right, that the words were covered but the statue STILL STANDS as if it were no big thing makes it a perfect example of how racism has changed in America. It is just like how most whites get all upset at being CALLED racist but are quite fine with BEING racist.
White people like to tell me that Progress Has Been Made and that I am Imagining Things. Well, in a way I am glad of this statue because it shows that the progress that has been made is not as great as whites like to think and that I am not simply Imagining Things.
LikeLike
What’s in a name? “A rose by any another name would smell as sweet.” This applies to statues that bare racist epitaphs too, I guess. Changing the name of an image or item does not change its meaning. Whether it says “Erected by the city of Natchitoches in grateful recognition of the arduous and faithful services of the good darkies of Louisiana.” or “Donated to the Rural Life Museum by Mrs. Jo Bryan Ducournau.”, it’s still a hunched over “good darkie” being subservient to his white masters. What a tribute to all of us “good” darkies!
LikeLike
mochasister.
I use the past tense in reference to the Southern Heritage provocateurs.
Even though my child had exposure to Black history, there were many things that were not taught as thoroughly as they should have been. I live in a very large city in the north, so more focus and some of the required reading had to do with Black folk migration and living in an urban environment, even from colonial times. Somewhat different from the experience of slavery and Jim Crow in the south. I found myself having to fill in what I could about what I knew had happened. Unfortunately my family wasn’t like Alex Haley’s where I knew any tales from slavery. I think for many of my grandmothers generation, they were ashamed and seldom spoke of it. The only information I got was that her mother was born in slavery.
I think one of the best documentaries of the civil rights movement was Eye on the Prize.
One thing that bothers me is that some of our history’s original documents are not under our control, for example I didn’t understand why Dr. King’s son has Standford and not Morehouse as the custodian of Dr. King’s speeches, letters, etc.
The University of North Carolina has quite a collection of slave narratives and other history and I wonder if at the whim of a hard line racist government would they have the power to extinguish all those records, UNC is a public university.
LikeLike
@ Hathor
That was exactly my first thought. Put it in a museum for human rights, together with other “artefacts from a dark past” and proper historical background info. A bit like the Auschwitz museum.
For an outsider it seems that for the majority of people who walk by it every day and live next to it that this kind of past is actually still present.
LikeLike
My mother told me people used to call her a darky as a little girl.
LikeLike
The statue should still be standing.
The real problem is when an understanding of the attitudes of the past is erased by the political expediency of the present. Let’s not erase history. Better to properly contextualize it.
But again, it is important to realize that this is an example of a racist SYSTEM, and how ubiquitous are/were its effects on the entire society, from top to bottom.
It’s tempting to place a black hat, and curly mustache onto Jackson L. Bryan, as if he is a stand out villain, but that misses the larger point, IMHO. From my perspective, it is even more important to realize that fundamental corruption, at the very roots of a social order, will taint even the highest hanging fruits on the tree.
There are always villains. But what is even more alarming is that even those who suppose themselves to be doing good are often doing harm, because the primary operational assumptions of their society have been corrupted.
LikeLike
I think the statue is offensive by all standards, regardless of the time it was made. The historical context can neither be denied nor neutralised by some tear-jerking stories. The historical context was known already in 1927. Even if it was considered “well-meant” by the standards of 1927 in Louisiana, artistically speaking, it invalidates itself as an attempt at … well, what is it supposed to be?… showing some “respect”? It is very clumsy at best which suggests that the maker (I wouldn’t call him artist) and sponsor of this statue had selfish motivations. By doing so, they are obviously the only ones to give themselves a “fuzzy feeling” and fundamentally don’t care at all about the person depicted.
I wouldn’t find it offensive if the statue had another person behind him, in the shape of a slave master cracking a whip or perhaps a KKK member running at him, carrying a gallows knot. That would have some artistic value by all standards as far as I’m concerned.
But once again, this is one opinion of an outsider raised in Europe who has lived only a few years in the South of the USA.
LikeLike
Talking about art in the South, here’s a brilliant piece by Banksy. Too bad it’s gone.
http://hypebeast.com/2008/09/banksy-alabama-piece-removed/
LikeLike
Cosign Hathor’s comments. Rather than the Smithsonian, though, it should have gone to the National Holocaust Musuem.
The whole “good darkie/loyal servant” thing is an interesting motiff that pops up every place there was a racially segregated woking class. It’s a particularly interesting thing to study, because black participation in white domestic life created a whole series of dependencies which were not easily erased, but which were also far from anything that could be called “faithfulness”. What the master class called “loyalty” was often nothing more than the slave’s underlying humanity. This caused a bit of a shock when the segregated systems came tumbling down, as they did for example in the final days of the U.S. Civil War.
Genovese talks about this alot. He mentions many cases of white planter families being aided or protected by their slaves, but said slaves then not even thinking twice about splitting once they learned about the abolition of slavery. A lot of white people couldn’t understand this and took it as a betrayal. They just couldn’t get their heads around how people who took care of them and apparently sincerely worried about their welfare one day would completely abandon them the next.
Genovese closes the section with a great discussion from Rhodesia that puts this whole thing into perspective:
There was a joke going around the Salisbury tea tables about a houseboy and a white lady he worked for. Madam said to the houseboy, “Joseph, I suppose that if there were to be a Kaffir revolution here, you’d kill me.” “Oh, no, Madam,” said Joseph. “I’d go next door and kill Gilbert’s Madam. Then Gilbert would come over here and kill you”.
LikeLike
The question is not whether the statue is offensive. Obviously it is. however, contextualizing it means to keep it standing, but then changing the context from that of an offhanded salute to well-behaved darkies, to an example of how far awry philanthropy and art can be taken when racism is accepted as a normative social philosophy.
Destroying or hiding things like this just leads to the convenient, “it never really happened” argument.
LikeLike
King,
I think you are basically preaching to the choir.
LikeLike
Hathor,
Personally I think King’s reasoning is slightly amiss
LikeLike
I should have given my reason why I thought it is amiss…………
because
If we follow through the logical consistency of the argument, it presumes, Whites cannot get rid of the statue for good and altruistic reasons.
This is confirmed where he suggests:
“Destroying or hiding things like this just leads to the convenient, “it never really happened” argument.
Inherent within the reasoning is that Whites will seek to ‘destroy’ or ‘hide’ so as ‘it never really happened’ but not with any possible good intentions.
LikeLike
I don’t think that’s inherent in the reasoning.
I’m simply saying that once the artifact is removed (in one way or another) that it then becomes easier for those who are inclined, to deny that it was “as bad as people say,” and eventually, that it ever existed at all.
LikeLike
Cheers King,
You know what you write, or more specifically intend to write.
The ‘recipient only has your words to go by.
Again, and I am not being pedantic, but merely following your reasoning and argument to its logical conclusion.
Do forgive me!!
There is something also amiss in your current post.
Since even today, it is possible for some to say that the words that were removed never existed also.
LikeLike
Why, my dear J., there is nothing to forgive… I find no offense in honest contention.
“Since even today, it is possible for some to say that the words that were removed never existed also.”
I quite agree. I think the words should have been left as they were written. I would only add a small brass plaque to explain the reason for keeping for the display as it was created.
LikeLike
[…] But, across America, there still stand statues which are ignominous and cruel insults to the humanity of Black people who survived American race-based slavery, the destruction of Reconstruction, and the 100-year reign of terror known as Jane Crow segregation. One such statue that still stands is the “Good Darky”, as referenced by Abagond in his post, “Uncle Jack, the Good Darky“. […]
LikeLike
J,
I just don’t get it. Is this nic pic 2711?
LikeLike
Uncle Jack probably meant no harm by the statue. I can almost understand his point of view. Though my sentiments coincide with the words of Pearl Payne.
LikeLike
Cheers Hathor,
I am not quite sure why you cannot understand the point??
Even King was good enough to admit that my point was valid, if followed through to its logical conclusion.
LikeLike
Disgusting. The fact that they left the statue divorced of all context by covering the original horrific text is that much more distressing. Whitewashing at its finest!
LikeLike
J,
What point would be made that somethings amiss?
here’s your original quote.
“Personally I think King’s reasoning is slightly amiss”
Then I read your next comment. What you see as implied I didn’t. I didn’t see his comment having anything to do with what whites would do or not do with the statue as a logical next step. As far I was concerned he was stating the present consciousness of the community.
King’s statement,
“Destroying or hiding things like this just leads to the convenient, “it never really happened” argument.”
This is basically how I felt.
When I first went to college, it was the first year that it had intergrated on an undergrad level. There were a little over 30 Black students in the entire university of 14,000 white students, with just a sprinkling of middle Eastern, Indian and some other foreign students; no sub Saharan Africans.
In the new student center hung a mural, roughly about 40ft long and 8ft high, depicting “Southern life” in one corner of the mural was the stereotypical Negro singing and dancing, painted in the typical style. None of the Black students liked this mural and there was for a few years some effort to have it removed. The argument that this depicted Southern life and that the artist was very famous. Some years later someone took a knife and slashed the mural. Created much outrage, even though there had been complaints, most of the whites had no idea why it would have been offensive and of course the vandal was much maligned.
This link doesn’t show the complete mural, but no one I knew got the context of how the mural was described and no mentioned the just the cotton picker, it all seemed like a portrayal of the happy darkies singing and dancing.
http://www.thefileroom.org/documents/dyn/DisplayCase.cfm/id/971
Here is the full size image
http://peace.maripo.com/images/UT_mural.jpeg
LikeLike
Cheers Hathor, for sharing the information.
Paradoxically this time round I was not able to follow your line of reasoning about the ‘next logical step’.
Its not that important unless you feel the need to expand on the point further.
LikeLike
It makes me wonder what people think that statue means now that its original inscription has been removed?
“Hey, look at my new hair implants?”
Removing the inscription was actually WORSE than destroying it in my mind. The history of racism gets conveniently white-washed, but the statue remains.
Worst of both possible worlds in my mind.
LikeLike
Funny how J can never understand the logic of other peoples’ arguments when these contradict what he believes.
LikeLike
notice how the figure’s head and neck are bent over, his shoulders slump, and-more subtly-his knees are slightly bent, further reducing his height. this isnt because he’s ‘old’ either…it’s a completely non-threatening, subservient posture which says ‘YOU are the boss, sir.’
if you watch the 1917 pro-klan film ‘birth of a nation’, you’llsee this and similar stances again and again as depicted by the black men who portrayed the slaves of the pre-civil war south; necks hung way foreward, arms hanging loosely, a bandy-legged, wide based way of standing and walking so that they kind of toddle along.
it made me realize that for a black man during those days to have stood up straight and tall to his full height, or to even just stand in a normal relaxed fashion-why THAT ALONE would probably be seen by whites as warrenting a beating.
LikeLike
So I take you don`t think he`s showing us his hair implants, Randy?
LikeLike
[…] please click here, for an article on the story of ‘Uncle Jack the Good Darky’, pelase click here, and for an article that shows us how find this word in our daily reading, please click here, and […]
LikeLike
[…] A statue to this archetype’s memory can still be found in Louisiana today, dedicated to Uncle Jack, a bowing humble figure described as “the good […]
LikeLike
[…] this archetype’s memory (erected in 1927) can still be found in Louisiana today, dedicated to Uncle Jack, a bowing humble figure described as “the good darky.” More grand gestures to the Mammy, […]
LikeLike
I think most likely, Mr. Jack Bryan meant absolutely no harm by wanting this statue. His own twin brother suggested that it might not be the time to do
something like that. For more information about the dialogue between Mr. Bryan and the sculptor, Hans Schuler, you might contact the Schuler School of Fine Art http://www.schulerschool.com/legacy.php There are possibly people who remember this incident, even if as told to them by family members. The family has kept many records of his work, and there might be included some correspondence with Jack Bryan.
The sculptor, Hans Schuler, was prominently known for his sculptures and monuments. So Mr. Bryan, for his memorial to people he found of great value to himself, he commissioned the best.
“Hans Schuler Sr.Known as the Monument Maker, sculptor Hans Schuler, Sr. graduated from the Maryland Institute’s Rinehart School of Sculpture, in Baltimore, Maryland. He taught there, was elected to the board in 1925, and served as the Institute’s director from 1925 to 1951. Early in his career he was the first American sculptor to win a Salon Gold Medal in Paris (1901). He went on to great success, acquiring numerous awards and commissions throughout the United States. Locally, this great sculptor’s monuments, reliefs, and sculpture portraits grace public buildings, streets, universities, and cemeteries throughout Maryland, adjacent states, and the District of Columbia.”
Here is a page of his work:
Here is a kind of biography: (there are better ones)
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1997-10-19/features/1997292109_1_hans-schuler-baltimore-maryland-institute
Here is a close-up of the face:
http://farm1.staticflickr.com/38/83420794_76407db606_z.jpg?zz=1
I have photographed the statue also, from many many angles. I have stood in front of the statue for lengths of time, studying the face. The face is the work of the sculptor, not an actual man, based on a collage of photos given him by J. Bryan. I could only find the face of an intelligent man, looking down at me in sympathy. Sympathy for me, for everyone who had to live in a world that passed ( is passing) through an age of slavery well after it’s historically regarded time. Or at all, actually.
As for his hat being tipped, that would be a regular sight in those days-men passing each other on the street, acknowledging one another. His bent body? There are still bent bodies here on earth, resulting from hard and manual labor.
At this point, the major history of the piece belongs to the sculptor, who figured in the history of sculpture in the U.S. The subject of his work, the old man, still has a chance to become part of our history, as soon as we can all let go of its nearness, its profound and sometimes shocking insertion into our lives, and as soon as memory fades. We can then, all of us, see clearly, and admit it as part of the history of man. We will look at the statue as we do statues of Adam and Eve banished from the garden, as we do crucifixes and a crucified man; it will no longer repulse, but enjoin us to be aware of ourselves.
Many call the holocaust an inhuman act. Be careful. They were human.
and for the Salon:
Salon (French art exhibition)
official exhibition of art sponsored by the French government. It originated in 1667 when Louis XIV sponsored an exhibit of the works of the members of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, and the salon derives its name from the fact that the exhibition was hung in the Salon d’Apollon of the Louvre Palace in Paris. After 1737 the Salon became an annual rather than a sporadic…(continued..)
LikeLike
I wandered by here looking for info on the statue; I’ve lived in Natchitoches on and off since the early 70s but remember seeing the statue as a child.
I used it as an example today, when discussing the battle flag that is having its controversial 150th anniversary in the spotlight, and how we can’t deny or rid ourselves of history, we have to excavate it, wipe it off, examine it and learn what we can, so that we are not doomed, in ignorance or hard-heartedness, to repeat our own mistakes.
A museum is a good place for things like this; however, it would be even better if an informational plaque sat with it, explaining for future generations its history and controversy, with references to the deep-set, unsettled and far too often unhealed wounds that thoughtless iconography can elicit.
LikeLike
[…] Photo Credit: Abagond https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/uncle-jack-the-good-darky/ […]
LikeLike
I grew up in the 80’s the statue would be a insult to me and probably all of my generation. Only because of the words, not the meaning of the statue itself.
LikeLike