Contextualizing the Statue
Across from Centre College’s Pearl Hall dorm and behind the Campus Center, a monument created in the likeness of a Confederate officer stands. It was erected in 1910 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of the Confederate Veterans organizations.
This statue was placed over fifty years since the end of the Civil War and within living memory of the public lynching of an African American gentleman on 24 December 1866, during which a white mob forcibly removed Al McRobards from jail and summarily executed him by hanging in the park. It was within the context of public lynching and the proliferation of Jim Crow practices that the statue declared, ‘What they were the Whole World Knows’.
In terms of broader historical context, Kentucky politicians became far more Confederate in their sensibilities than was evident before the late nineteenth century. Throughout the Commonwealth, organizations such as the Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons of Confederate Veterans bolstered Confederate mythologies and ‘Lost Cause’ history writing by erecting monuments that championed Confederate heroism and legitimacy. The vast majority of Kentucky’s Confederate monuments were not constructed until the early to mid-twentieth century, nearly fifty to one-hundred years after the Civil War. In popular culture throughout the region, plays, songs and novels propelled Confederate ideologies, including those authored by the North Carolinian minister Thomas Dixon Jr. In time, notions about the ‘war of northern aggression’ were created, a term that few southerners would have used prior to the 1950s.
It was within this context that the Confederate statue that currently sits on the Presbyterian Church's property was erected.
-Research Compiled By Dr. Earle
Statue Relocation is STILL Important today
Although officially located on ground owned by the Presbyterian Church, due to its location next to campus, this statue overlooks Centre College. The statue serves as a powerful symbol of the history of slavery, lynching, and racist violence in Danville.
Today, every student, staff, and faculty member of Centre College walks by the
Confederate statue on their way to town; it is unavoidable for students living in Pearl Hall, Stuart House, Ruby Cheek House, and the North Fifth Street Apartments. It reminds students that Centre College—with its traditional relationship with and geographical proximity to the Presbyterian Church—is comfortable with the cause the statue signifies. Every night, Centre’s African and African American students are invited to rest and relax in spaces that are within viewing distance of a monument that commemorates soldiers and officers who would have them enslaved—and fought and were willing to die to ensure that this was the case.
Centre's Connection to Racial Violence More Generally:
Centre College is implicated in this history of racial violence. During the mid-19th Century, a wave of Urban Renewal projects demolished Black neighborhoods across the United States in order to “beautify” these “blighted” areas. In one of these projects in Danville, Seventh Street was purchased by Centre College. Black residents were removed from their homes in that area that is now part of Centre’s campus. The space is now occupied by the many students whose dormitories are located at the north side of campus.
Contextualizing the Statue: A Larger Timeline
Dec 24, 1866: At about 5 PM, there were gunshots at the corner of Second and Main Streets, which attracted a crowd. Al McRobards had tried to kill a police officer named W. A. Harne, but he did not leave a serious injury. Harne hit McRobards with a club and arrested him. Around 12:00, “Judge Lynch,” whose identity is unknown, and his officers publicly lynched McRobards despite the fact he had already been arrested. He was lynched on a “large Elm Tree in the old Presbyterian church-yard, at the west end of Main Street.” (“Judge Lynch”)
1868: A Confederate lot was formed in the city's Bellevue Cemetery, and this lot currently adjoins the Danville National Cemetery. (National Cemetery Administration)
May 2, 1884: An article stating that McDowell Park is continually vandalized on the “College street side.”
May 30, 1890: An article stating that McDowell Park is continually unkempt and needs someone to take care of it.
April 10, 1908: Kentucky Advocate article describes that several Confederate soldiers wanted the monument to be in the cemetery where the soldiers are buried. One refused to attend the unveiling unless the monument was in the cemetery. (Mary Ashby posted the photo of the scan on The Advocate-Messenger Online’s Facebook post)
April 13, 1908: Kentucky Advocate article describes that the Confederate soldiers want the monument to be in Bellevue cemetery because it’ll be safe from vandals and that’s where the soldiers are buried. (“Should Be in Bellevue”)
May 6, 1908: Daughters of the Confederacy have gained the money needed to build the statue.
April 7, 1909: The Daughters of the Confederacy decided to erect the monument of Capt. R. D. Logan in Bellevue Cemetery.
Sept 13, 1909: The city council donated a lot in the Bellevue cemetery to the Daughters of the Confederacy to erect the Confederate monument.
Jan 19, 1910: Some Confederate Veterans met to decide if the Confederate monument should be erected in McDowell park instead of the cemetery. The veterans previously favored the cemetery, and there weren’t any further steps taken. (“Did Nothing”)
Feb 2, 1910: The Daughters of the Confederacy decided to place the statue in McDowell Park. The statue would be of Captain Robert Logan.
May 20, 1910: Daughters of Confederacy held a large ceremony for the erection of the Confederate Memorial Sculpture, in the same place of the lynching (“CONFEDERATE MONUMENT READY FOR UNVEILING,” “Notable Occasion”)
Aug 8, 1910: The Daughters of the Confederacy provided scholarships for descendants of Confederate soldiers. One of those scholarships was for Centre College. (“SCHOLARSHIPS”)
Oct 3, 1910: S. D. Van Pelt criticizes a child who vandalized the monument in McDowell park. (“Capt. S. D. VanPelt Gives His Opinion of the Parties Who Disfigured the Monuments in McDowell Park”). A reward was offered for finding the person who did it. (“VANDALS”)
Dec 30, 1919: The Confederate Statue is vandalized (“Vandals Who Marred Monument”)
Jan 3, 1920: S.D. Vanpelt condemns the vandalism of the Confederate statue (“Condemns Vandals”)
Feb 19, 1931: McDowell Park was vandalized again (“Vandals at Work In McDowell Park”).
Nov 7, 1933: An article reporting that McDowell Park is being landscaped well (“McDowell Park”).
Feb 28, 1938: The Jane Todd Crawford monument in memory of Dr. Ephraim McDowell (in McDowell Park) was vandalized again. (“Vandals Injure Park Monument”)
Nov 8, 1959: An article that mentions several vandalisms to the Confederate statue and McDowell park (“Pranksterism”). Later, Delta Kappa Epsilon (a Centre fraternity) helped clean it up.
July 17, 1997: Confederate Monument in Danville was 1/60 Civil War-related monuments in KY placed on the National Register of Historic Places .
Dec 1, 2018: The Daughters of the Confederacy released a letter denouncing “any individual or group that promotes racial divisiveness or white supremacy.” They also expressed pain that “some people find anything connected with the Confederacy to be offensive.” (“Letter from the president of the UDC”)
Oct 22, 2019: The Advocate-Messenger Online posts on Facebook that the statue is to be removed from the Presbyterian Church lot
Oct 26, 2019: The Advocate-Messenger Online posts an editorial stating that the relocation of the statue is an opportunity for Danville to compromise and “preserve [its] history and acknowledge its flaws.”
Currently: The statue sits on what is now the Presbyterian Church’s property, and they have voted to work with the city to have it moved to the Confederate cemetery. They have been raising funds for several years now.