Away, away

Statue leaves, work toward unity remains

We keep imagining someone with a second-floor office that has a view onto the downtown Bentonville square. One day, while its occupant takes a phone call on an important piece of business, something hovering in the air outside catches the eye.

“Was that …? No, couldn’t have been. But

… yeah, I think a Confederate soldier just flew past my office.”

Maybe that second glass of wine the night before while watching “Night at the Museum” wasn’t such a good idea.

Sure enough last week, the old statue was flying, wrapped in straps and levitated by a crane. His watch over the downtown square ended after 112 years. The United Daughters of the Confederacy, in collaboration with county officials, decided earlier this year the time to end the sentinel’s watch had come. Contractors hauled him away on a flat-bed trailer and dismantled the base on which he’d stood. By week’s end, dozens of green plants had replaced the statue at the center of the square’s fountain. Nice, neutral green plants.

The statue’s future is on private land, not too far away. There, he will continue the mission his owners say he was originally given — to honor the local residents who went to war in a conflict that tore asunder a nation just 85 years after its founding.

That it was erected in 1908, 43 years after the Civil War ended and in an era of Jim Crow laws and segregation, suggests other motives inspired its construction.

It’s gone now. Bentonville, which didn’t own the statue or the land it sat on, nonetheless has been freed of a reminder of the past that stood as a barrier to its future. Regardless of what it memorialized, the soldier in the 21st century was never going to represent anything but division as long as it held its ground on the public square.

The statue’s removal is unquestionably an important event in the history of the community. Anything that’s been a constant presence through 112 years of change holds a place of historic significance. Its departure also marks a historic shift in attitudes that resulted in its peaceful removal. Community values have changed and the private tribute no longer fit local public sentiment.

Here in 2020, the question remains: Does the removal mean all the attitudes that kept the statue in place for 112 years suddenly evaporate, that divergent perspectives about racial matters are resolved? No one should pretend the disposition of a piece of granite resolves the challenges of racial division faced by the country, Arkansas, Benton County or Bentonville. Such issues are heavy, indeed, but can’t be hooked to a crane and hauled away.

(File Photo/NWA Democrat-Gazette) The Confederate soldier statue shown last fall on the Bentonville square. It was lifted off its pedestal and removed last week.