State proposal puts finish of Bates, Cash statues by 2022

The statues of Little Rock Nine mentor Daisy Bates and musician Johnny Cash must be completed by sculptors and ready for shipment to Washington, D.C., by Dec. 31, 2021, under the schedule outlined in Secretary of State John Thurston’s requests for qualifications from sculptors to design and caste the statues.

But the Republican secretary of state’s request for qualifications from sculptors provides some wiggle room for an extension of that deadline.

“… this timeline is contingent upon the approval process engaged in by the Joint Committee on the Library and Office of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and is subject to extension, by mutual agreement of both parties to any contract executed pursuant to the design and creation of the statue,” according to the requests for qualifications.

Thurston on Friday issued separate requests for qualifications for sculptors for the two statues to be placed in the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol to represent Arkansas.

Prospective sculptors are required to submit their information to the secretary of state’s office by 4 p.m. Oct. 19.

The request for qualifications was sent to 31 interested parties and prospective sculptors, said Kurt Naumann, director of administration for the secretary of state.

“We hope to make our final selections for both statues before the close of 2020,” he said Friday in a written statement. “We will have to identify the finalists, then request models to base our final selection on.”

That will require at least two more meetings of the National Statuary Hall steering committee and Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission in November and December, he said.

That steering committee is an advisory group chaired by Arkansas State University System President Shane Broadway.

“We won’t know how long it will take the sculptors to build the statues until we begin negotiations and agree to a timeline,” Naumann said.

STATUARY HALL

In 1864, Congress passed a law inviting each state to submit up to two bronze and marble statues to be placed in what is known as Statuary Hall. As the number of states grew, the statues spread to other areas in the U.S. Capitol.

Under Act 1068 of 2019, the Legislature decided to have statues of Bates and Cash placed in the U.S. Capitol to replace Arkansas’ two statues there. Arkansas’ current statues are of the late attorney Uriah M. Rose and the late U.S. Sen. and Gov. James P. Clarke.

Amid the covid-19 pandemic during the past several months, it’s been unclear how long it would take state officials to raise sufficient funds for the two new statues, when sculptors would complete the construction of the statues and when the statues would be installed in Washington, D.C.

Act 1068 of 2019 requires the secretary of state to receive funds for the design, completion, transport and display of the Bates and Cash statues. The funds can include appropriations, private gifts, grants and donations from individuals and organizations.

Two months ago, Naumann said the Architect of the Capitol told Thurston’s office that the process could take three to five years.

FINDING FUNDS

At that time, he said the aim was to raise roughly $400,000 to $500,000 before the secretary of state’s office issues separate requests for qualifications for sculptors of the two statues.

So far, the project has received a $100,000 contribution from Walmart for the statues.

Naumann said Friday in his written statement that “I understand that there are $345,000 in additional pledges for a $445,000 total. (I do not know any specifics about the pledges.)

“Our appropriation remains at $750,000 for the total project cost. We will reevaluate the appropriation as soon as contract(s) with successful sculptor(s) are executed,” he said.

Naumann said “with the additional pledges, we believe that issuing the RFQs now will better enable us to remain on target for completion of the statues by the end of next year.”

Stacy Hurst, secretary of the state Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, said that “we do have a couple of large gifts we’re working on and hope to have more information to announce very soon.”

Hurst is a director of the Foundation for Arkansas Heritage and History, which is a nonprofit that supports the Arkansas Division of Arkansas Heritage and agreed to be a repository for private charitable gifts for designing and creating the statues. It will turnover the donations to the secretary of state’s office.

Asked about the goal for eventually installing the statues, Naumann estimated that it would occur in mid-2022, but that estimating the time was difficult because of separate review processes that must occur on the federal level.

MONUMENT MATTER

Gov. Asa Hutchinson in a Friday statement said he was “delighted” the requests for qualifications were issued. His spokeswoman said that he remains committed to having both statues installed in Washington, D.C., before he leaves office in January 2023.

In a settlement with the Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, the city of Little Rock agreed to contribute $45,000 — which Hurst said should be issued next week — from its general fund to the construction of the statue of Bates.

The settlement arose after the staff removed a statue of a Confederate soldier from the MacArthur Park grounds in June at the direction of Mayor Frank Scott Jr. City and state officials disagreed about whether Little Rock violated the condition of a grant agreement with that removal.

In 2017, Little Rock received a $100,000 grant from the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program to restore the facade of the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History and as a condition of receiving that grant the city gave the state an easement on the land where the monument, known as “Memorial to Company A, Capitol Guards,” stood.

RULES AND SPECS

Under the requests for qualifications for sculptors, up to three finalists for each statue may be requested to submit a model for the Washington, D.C. statues. Those who are invited to do so will receive a flat fee of $2,500 for delivery of a finished model under the request for qualifications.

The highest-rated sculptor will be invited to negotiate a fee for the design and production of each statue.

If the highest-rated sculptor

is unable to negotiate a fee that is within the projected budget, then the secretary of state, with advice from the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission and Statuary Hall committee, is required to begin negotiations with the next highest-rated sculptor until the contract is awarded.

The sculptures are to be in either bronze or marble and have a separate pedestal on which the statue will rest.

Each statue “should be over life-sized with a height between seven and eight feet,” according to the secretary of state’s request for qualifications. Seven feet is the average height of a statue in the National Statuary Hall Collection.

The separate pedestal on which the sculpture stands must be hollow with a steel frame construction and faced with marble or granite, and Arkansas materials are strongly preferred if available, according to the request for qualifications.

Before the approval of the design, material, production and method of display of the new statues, the secretary of state is required under Act 1088 of 2019 to have those steps reviewed by the Legislative Council, or the Joint Budget Committee if the Legislature is in session; the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission; and any other commission established the facilitate

the purposes of the law.

In 1917, the Arkansas Legislature approved a marble statue of Rose, who helped found the Rose Law firm and the American Bar Association.

In 1921, the Legislature approved a marble statue of Clarke, who was governor from 1895-1897 and U.S. senator from 1903-1916.

Clarke is the great-great grandfather of former state Rep. Clarke Tucker, a Democrat from Little Rock. He is vying with Republican Bob Thomas in the Nov. 3 general election to succeed state Sen. Will Bond, a Democrat from Little Rock.

In October of 2018 Tucker wrote in guest column for the Arkansas Times that “my family is now aware of a statement Sen. Clarke made when he was running for governor in 1894 when he reportedly said. ‘The people of the South looked to the Democratic Party to preserve the white standards of civilization.’”

Tucker, who was challenging Republican U.S. Rep. French Hill of Little Rock at that time, said he and his family condemned that statement and new statues were needed.

The secretary of state’s office hasn’t yet determined where the statues of Rose and Clarke will go after they are replaced with statues of Bates and Cash, said Chris Powell, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office.