Denver sculptor Ed Dwight found himself in the middle of South Carolina’s complex race relations when he was hired to design an African-American monument for the state Capitol’s grounds.
He recalled the encouraging phone calls from then-Sen. pro tem Glenn McConnell, one of the state’s most powerful politicians, who showed great interest in the monument and its design.
Then, Dwight met the Charleston Republican, a Civil War re-enactor who owned a Confederate memorabilia shop, in his office at the South Carolina Capitol. He said he was struck by all of the Confederate icons in the senator’s office.
“He really, really wanted to keep the flag,” Dwight said.
The monument was commissioned as part of the compromise between the state’s political leaders over the Confederate flag. The flag would be removed from the Capitol dome to a 30-foot pole beside a Confederate memorial.
For Dwight, some of the toughest resistance to his designs came from South Carolina’s black leaders.
They were concerned about offending white leaders, who might find the harsh realities of slavery too hard to accept in such a public space. He said he was told, “You don’t live here, so you don’t understand.”
“We got into a lot of hassle because there was a bunch of stuff on the memorial black people didn’t want,” he said. “Of course, a lot of whites didn’t want the memorial at all.”
To this day, Dwight’s monument is the only tribute to the state’s black history on a grounds where statues and monuments on every corner honor the Confederacy or staunch segregationists.
McConnell, now president of the College of Charleston, is one of dozens of prominent South Carolinians who made an about-face last week on the flag’s position.
He issued a statement saying it was time for the flag to retire to a museum.
At 82, Dwight is pleased to see attitudes shift.
“We’ve been fighting for years to get this thing down,” he said.
Noelle Phillips: 303-954-1661, nphillips @denverpost.com or
