Tradition permeates Frankfort.
My political reporting career started in 2000 at The Kentucky Gazette in Frankfort after I graduated from Eastern Kentucky University. It quickly became apparent that rules, tradition, and decorum were a large part of getting things done. It’s a way to temper the messiness of law making.
Tradition and rules are appealing, because everyone knows the rules and how things are supposed to work. However, tradition also can be used to quiet righteous dissent.
One Frankfort tradition is holding press conferences and big events in the Capitol Rotunda. The small Rotunda is a special and regal place, full of history. The marbled space holds five statues of notable Kentuckians, including U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and his Civil War rival, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.
Though Kentucky wasn’t officially part of the Confederacy, but as a Southern state did have many Confederate supporters. Lincoln himself feared Kentucky might join the Confederacy and waged what amounted to a PR campaign to keep our state in the union.
I spent five years of my career in Frankfort, reporting news in the shadow of Jefferson Davis’ statue. My family has been in Kentucky for generations, but even then I was confused about why Davis was given such a place of honor. He was man who worked to rip Southern states away from the Union to preserve the “right” to build slaveholder wealth off the work of Africans.
Jefferson is quoted as saying, “African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing.” Slavery is among our country’s greatest sins, yet there stands a tribute to Davis in a place meant to better life for all Kentuckians. Below the statue reads: Patriot, Hero & Statesman.
The message is clear. The Jefferson Davis statue in the Capitol Rotunda is not in remembrance of the shame of U.S. slavery. It’s government-sanctioned commendation for the man who led the charge to preserve it.
Right now, government leaders across the country are rethinking the proper place for these monuments. This comes after the terrible events in Charlottesville, Va., following the plans in that city to remove a Robert E. Lee memorial statue.
There are very few times in history when we as regular Kentuckians have a real opportunity to push for monumental change, and to represent all of the commonwealth’s citizens. This is one of those times.
There are five statues in the Rotunda. Five places to honor the men and women whose lives made our state a better place for every person in it. Now is the time to open up Jefferson Davis’ spot for a more worthy Kentuckian.
I ask the Kentucky Historic Properties Advisory Commission to remove Jefferson Davis’ statue from the rotunda and place it in a history museum, where it belongs.
Some traditions are best left in the past.
Feoshia Davis is a freelance writer. She now lives in Cincinnati.