New sculpture celebrates influential figures in Jackson-Madison County
JACKSON, Tenn. — It’s a unique honor for some citizens as a new sculpture is unveiled at a local park.
A new sculpture was presented today at the Shirlene Mercer Walking Trail Park to honor African American citizens of Jackson-Madison County that “made tremendous sacrifices in order for the community to flourish.”
“The people we are here to remember today for this first sculpture, ‘Living Stones,’ is Mr. Gene Huntspon, Dr. Kimmie Powell Davis, Mrs. Mary Cunningham, Mr. David Woolfork, Gil Scott Heron, Madeline Walker, Brenda Monroe, and Gillard Glover,” said Lee Benson of Benson Sculpture.
Union University, the City of Jackson, and Benson Sculpture partnered together for this project.
Benson talked about how the stones represent the people who are being honored and how they have been “living stones” for the City of Jackson.
“Individuals who are living stones in the community and culture that make a huge difference for good,” Benson said. “So that’s how it came to be, the boulders represent individuals who are being celebrated by the sculpture and the seat is for those who come to enjoy the sculpture.”
Benson said he was needing help for a new sculpture and he found Dr. Melvin Wright, who helped him come up with this idea.
“He said ‘yeah, I’ll do it.’ He said ‘ya know, the Black man was left out of the last hundred years of Jackson’s history, I’ll be darned if we are left out of the next hundred years,'” Benson said.
Dr. Dub Oliver, the President of Union University, has agreed to partially pay for one sculpture at this park every year for the next five years.
Organizers say each year they will hold this ceremony to unveil the new sculptures.
For more news in the Jackson area, click here.
