Monument to Maggie L. Walker would be fitting tribute to her & Richmond

A resolution to support a monument to famed Richmonder Maggie Lena Walker has passed through Richmond City Council.

She was an educator and is best known for being the first woman to charter and serve as president of a bank in the United States. Her home in the 100 block of E. Leigh Street in Jackson Ward is a federally protected National Historic Site. She was born in Richmond in 1867 and died here in 1934. She is buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

NBC12’s Laura Geller wrote:

In a city of monuments, leaders want this monument to be a big deal. They do not want something that will blend into the background, but a statue that will make people think about the accomplishments of the first African-American woman to run a bank…Under the ordinance, the city will study if the intersection of Broad Street, Adams Street and Brook Road will make for a good location. Originally, [Councilman Charles] Samuels wanted the statue to go on Monument Avenue but he’s been convinced Jackson Ward is the perfect place. The project will be funded through private donations.

Richmond is a city of monuments and Jackson Ward is the perfect place for this one. With all the economic growth and physical improvements to the neighborhood once known as the “Harlem of the South” and the “Black Wall Street of America” because of its reputation as a center for both black commerce and entertainment.

According to CBS6’s Mark Holmberg:

Currently, only a large tree sits in that triangle made by the three intersecting roads downtown, just a few blocks from where Walker’s Consolidated Bank & Trust now sits. But there’s much more standing in the way. Specifically, funding, as the last portion of the resolution points out. The city council vote was largely symbolic, noting the city will have to make sure it owns that triangle before it can even consider using it for this monument.

Knowing who owns the quirky triangle is important [locator map]. It would be a shame for that tree to go, but that much-improved section of the Broad Street corridor could use another attraction to continue its resurgance.

Marcus S. Jones Jr., 1971 graduate of Maggie Walker High School and president of the Maggie L. Walker Statue Foundation. He said to CBS6’s Holmberg: “I’m going to try to get a grant, written for $500,000 to a million dollars.”

As I did when I wrote about my proposed statue to Lewis Ginter, let’s use Richmond’s statue honoring tennis champion and Richmond native Arthur Ashe as a comparison.   

Ashe is honored with a 12 foot tall bronze statue at Monument Avenue and Roseneath Road that stands on a 87,000 pound granite block and rises 28 feet above the street. It was created by artist Paul Di Pasquale and was dedicated in July 1996 with a cost of nearly $450,000 (according to figures from the Richmond Times-Dispatch).   

If the property transfer brings no larger cost to the city than the tree removal and some cosmetic work, a monument to Maggie L. Walker in that spot could cost between $500,000 and $750,000, depending on the artist and scale of the monument. The size of the triangle should keep the sculpture to a scale similar to that of Bill Bojangles Robinson, which conveniently resides four blocks away north on Adams Street, forming a nice bookend of sorts for Jackson Ward.

Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson in Jackson Ward

WHAT: Statue to Bill Bojangles Robinson in Jackson Ward in downtown Richmond, Virginia.

LOCATION: At the intersection of old Brook Road, West Leigh and Price streets, in the south corner of the triangular Bojangles Park.

ARTIST: John Temple Witt.

DEDICATION: June 30, 1973.

DESCRIPTION: This 9 1/2 ft. aluminum figure of the famous tap dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson stands on a 6 foot high black marble pedestal. The Statue portrays Bojangles dancing down a flight of stairs. It is sponsored by the Astoria Beneficial Club.

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Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was born May 25, 1878, in Richmond. He was an American tap dancer and actor of stage and film. Audiences enjoyed his understated style, which eschewed the frenetic manner of the jitterbug in favor of cool and reserve; rarely did he use his upper body, relying instead on busy, inventive feet and an expressive face.

A figure in both the Black and White entertainment worlds of his era he is best known today for his dancing with Shirley Temple in a series of films during the 1930s. He died of heart failure, penniless in New York City, November 25, 1949.

Sadly, Bojangles Park is very small and the streets are busy at this intersection. I love this setting and the statue itself, but it’s tough to enjoy the scene with visitors and small children without worrying about traffic.

Of course, that’s part of why he’s honored. The story goes that in 1933, while in Richmond, he saw two children risk speeding traffic to cross a street because there was no stoplight at the intersection. Robinson went to the city and provided the money to have one installed.

The triangle park is well-maintained, as is much of the architecturally intriguing Jackson Ward these days. So many renovated homes and old buildings are being brought back to life.

The park also includes an old animal drinking fountain, which I find to be fascinating in its own right. I wish that many more of those existed around the city as an attractive link to the past. It’s easy to envision someone with a horse carriage taking advantage of a fountain like this one on a “long” trip from downtown Richmond to Ginter Park and the North Side 100 years ago.