"Empathy": Statue of Civil Rights Icon John Lewis to be Unveiled Where a Confederate Monument Once Stood
The sculptor behind a new statue of the longtime Congressman explains the power that art can have in social justice
The unveiling of a new sculpture in DeKalb County, Georgia Saturday morning will mark an inflection point in American history.
For years, Georgians had rallied against a 30-foot Confederate monument that stood outside the County Courthouse in Decatur. Erected in 1908 by The United Daughters of the Confederacy, the granite obelisk was long-understood to glorify the “Lost Cause” of the Civil War, honor the soldiers who fought on the side of slavery, and intimidate Black Americans for generations.
The fight was drawn out through different eras of Civil Rights activism. Supporters of the monument said it was a piece of “cultural heritage” that should be left standing; opponents said it was built to intimidate and that its racism reverberated for more than 150 years after the Civil War ended.
In 2020, after a fight between local activists and legislators, a judge declared it was a “public nuisance” and it was torn down. A task-force was set up to decide what should go in its place.
It was clear almost immediately who should be honored in this square: John Lewis.
Lewis was a towering figure who had dedicated his life to serving the American people and eradicating racial injustices throughout the nation. Lewis was one of the original “freedom riders,” the non-violent activists calling out racial oppression and segregation. He was also one of the “big six” organizers of the March on Washington, and spoke on the same stage where Martin Luther King, Jr. would profess “I have a dream.” He led the Selma marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and was attacked by officers so badly his skull was fractured. And he would then go on to represent Georgia’s 5th Congressional District for more than 30 years, until his death of pancreatic cancer in 2020. When then-president Barack Obama gave Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award in 2011, he said:
“Generations from now, when parents teach their children what is meant by courage, the story of John Lewis will come to mind -- an American who knew that change could not wait for some other person or some other time; whose life is a lesson in the fierce urgency of now.”
The task force in DeKalb County came to an agreement. “John was a giant of a man, with a humble heart, he met no strangers and he truly was a man who loved the people and who loved his country, which he represented very well. He deserves this honor,” DeKalb County Commissioner Mereda Davis Johnson said at the time.
For more than 100 years a racist tower, inscribed with words such as “a covenant keeping race” had loomed over the DeKalb County’s house of justice. Now, a memorial for a Black man, who promoted “Good Trouble” and dedicated his life to the American promise will stand in its place.
Translating the Life of an Icon into Bronze
The DeKalb County Task Force fielded applications and proposals from artists all around the world. They settled on Jamaican-born sculptor Basil Watson, who’s become known internationally for his pieces which often have a social justice component.
“It’s an honor to represent John Lewis. He was a tremendous leader for Civil rights and all people.” Watson told me ahead of the unveiling ceremony. “But it’s also exciting for what it represents in this political climate: where it’s very charged, with lots of rhetoric about racial justice.”
“I’m not only putting up an iconic sculpture for civil rights, but it’s replacing what was a deliberate effort to undermine racial and social justice.”
Watson has created art for more than 40 years. Born into an artistic family in Kingston, Jamaica, he emigrated to the U.S. in 2002 and landed in Georgia. He is inspired by the idea of turning positive emotions into crafted pieces of art. Often, that intersects with social justice movements in society.
Watson sculpted the National Windrush Monument in London’s Waterloo Station, which represented the generation of Caribbean-born people moving to Europe en masse to fill jobs after World War II (Watson’s family was among this group of people). In 2021, he was commissioned by Atlanta to create Hope Moving Forward, a statue dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I have great empathy with with themes of social justice and civil rights,” he said. “This statue sits very centrally within the my portfolio of work.”
After his proposal was accepted, he had to get to work. He settled on a 12-foot tall statue (almost twice life-size) that would sit atop a 4-foot pedestal.
Watson briefly met Lewis at an arts conference years ago and was struck by “his calm demeanor and his generosity of spirit.” He wanted those attributes to carry into the sculpture.
But because the congressman died four years ago, he had to rely on pictures to create the work. These would inform how he shaped the Bronze version of Lewis; how he would capture his personality, his calm fierceness, his posture, and his presence.
“It was based off of an amalgamation of different pictures, but there is one specific picture with his hands clasped over his heart that is central to the theme of the piece,” Watson said.
He decided that the piece, which he worked on for more than two years, would be called “Empathy.”
“I think empathy is important for social harmony, for us understanding each other more before judgment.” Watson said. “I think empathy is the vehicle that can carry us to that understanding.”
John Lewis was the embodiment of that, he says. Though his later life was dedicated to understanding all people - his constituents and otherwise, Lewis spent his early years as a non-violent student demonstrator to get Americans who were supporting oppression to better understand their Black neighbors.
Now, this is what a square in Georgia will represent.
The Fight to Remove Racist History
On the Eve of Juneteenth, 2020, Mawuli Davis went down to the DeKalb County Courthouse in Decatur, Georgia and lifted a bottle of champagne.
The lawyer and community leader had gathered that night alongside hundreds of other Georgia residents to celebrate the removal of a 30-foot obelisk from the town square.
“Just drop it!” some cheered as officers held them back from the construction scene that night.
For Davis this was not just a celebration, but a solemn victory that capped a years-long effort to remove a piece of the South’s racist history.
“We came up against many roadblocks and we didn’t know if it would be removed,” Davis told me. “But we knew it needed to be removed. So we gathered that night to see it through. It was a great night.”
The towering chunk of granite had been erected in 1908 by the The United Daughters of the Confederacy. According to the DeKalb History Center, the group was “very focused on promoting the ‘Lost Cause’ version of the Civil War that minimized slavery’s central role and promoted the Confederacy as heroic.”
Installed just two years after the Atlanta Race Riots, where perhaps more than 25 Black Georgians were killed (the exact figure is unknown), racial tensions still ran high throughout the region.
“This was a symbol of white supremacy… it was absolutely about holding our ancestors captive” Davis said. “It was installed to intimidate Black Americans and discourage them from voting.”
Davis started the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights in 2017 to bring together students and activists for a cause. It was born in the wake of the 2017 “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville, Virginia. Among their causes was to see the removal of the Confederate obelisk.
“There was so much misinformation at that time, saying it was a heritage piece and not understanding that it was to intimidate Black men and discourage them from voting,” Davis said.
The movement stalled then, but picked up new energy in 2020 after the death of George Floyd. Black Lives Matter protests swept across America as the nation had a reckoning on race, one of the largest since the Civil War. Among the national conversations was what to do with Confederate monuments that either glorified the slave-owning South or whitewashed the atrocities of war. More than 2,000 had been put in place in the 150 years since the war ended. In 2020, nearly 100 Confederate monuments were removed, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, compared to 54 between 2015 and 2019.
After a fight between local activists and state legislators, a Judge in Georgia intervened. The DeKalb County Confederate obelisk was a “public nuisance” and “must be abated immediately.”
While the statue was removed, the enfranchisement of voters, especially Black voters, has been at risk in recent election cycles. The continuation of that fight is top of mind for Davis.
“Georgia is clutching these relics of white supremacy that want to control us and take us backwards,” he told me." “They’re really desperate in the efforts to block Black people from voting instead of expanding democracy. They want to contract democracy, shrink it, limit it. When the monument was erected in 1908, it was to block Black men from voting. It continues today. It’s a continual fight for our rights, our right to vote.”
“Art is a Very Powerful Tool”
Watson hopes that the sculpture will inspire people to look deeper into the story of John Lewis and will stand to represent social justice moving forward.
“If art does not speak to truth on any level, then there is nothing secret about it,” Watson said. “And I think public art in particular should reflect our values. Art is a very powerful tool especially for education,” Watson said.
Watson said there was an extra layer of pressure knowing that the statue of Lewis would be in a public square, especially one that had a racist past.
“But pressure makes diamonds, and it's a pressure that I have sought, and that I welcome,” he told me.
“One wants their art to make an impact, so I welcome the pressure. I hope that it has helped to push me to higher levels.”
“As an artist, is an important quality for me to understand and have some empathy with with my subject.” This is not unlike a relationship with leaders and the people they represent, Watson said. “It is also important for leaders to understand the situation of the people that they are leading. So on a wide philosophical level, I am hoping that it gives us a deeper understanding of empathy and qualities that we need to have within ourselves.”