Wendell Berry’s defense of mural on UK campus shows ‘Hidden Wound’ was superficial after all

I was absolutely delighted nearly a half century ago when I read The Hidden Wound, an eloquently crafted digest by Kentucky Poet Laureate Wendell Berry. It is a touchstone piece on the damage racism does to the identity of our country and how remaining passive about it further corrodes America’s potential. Through that book, Mr. Berry, 86, earned a high spot as an ally to blacks’ anti-racist feelings and activities, and he subsequently became a highly acclaimed member of all manner of progressive associations, the recipient of such awards as the National Humanities Medal.

Mr. Berry, to my absolute astonishment – sort of - recently sued the University of Kentucky to maintain a mural that many consider disgustingly offensive, although he has not defended it as “heritage.” Maybe he takes its removal as a personal affront; after all, it was painted in the Depression era by his wife’s aunt, Ann Rice O’Hanlon. Full disclosure: I picketed and protested publicly in front of that mural fifty-four years ago when I was a junior at the University of Kentucky, and I loathed it privately twice a week when I had to walk past it to class in Memorial Hall.

In his lawsuit, Mr. Berry drags Karyn Olivier, a black artist, across the canvass of his broadly-brushed sweep: a strategic move that positions her retroactive, commissioned piece, as an alternative narrative that compensates for the garish and grotesque images on O’Hanlon’s rendering, making everybody happy. That call and response is out of place here. Under the guise of adding context, we give validity to what is patently offensive. I am reminded of the past battle over the lyrics to My Old Kentucky Home, where we sang “‘tis summer, the darkies are gay.” We didn’t add a new verse to give context to the phrase in our state anthem. We changed the words.

I respect Mr. Berry, remembering how a highlight of my time as president of Kentucky State University twenty years ago was to host a fancy dinner in his honor, to get his autograph in my frayed and greatly highlighted copy of The Hidden Wound. But I must ask Mr. Berry if he considers this piece of art more important than community. While we should neither be reckless nor rushed in decisions about art once hung; neither should our attachments to artists’ interpretations of reality be binding and irretrievable, infallible, and forever consecrated?

What excessive privilege, hubris, and arrogance Mr. Berry must have to employ his gravitas and paint into a corner those who seek to remove his relative’s depiction of the pillage and plunder of their fore parents from a public space? The descendants of Iroquois people represented on the mural as savage scalpers might say, “Mr. Berry, you speak with forked tongue.” What do you say, Mr. Berry, about the Confederate Soldiers’ Martyrs Monument, a 7-foot high obelisk in Eminence, Kentucky, near your home, that honors three Confederate soldiers who in 1864 killed “two Negras,” as the inscription on the shrine reads?

Mr. Berry, the current generation of black students at our alma mater who led the protests to remove the mural are neither your grandparents’ docile servants, nor your flatterers. I salute them for engraving a new militancy. They will not be stopped, and I seriously doubt that they will be as respectful, as deferential, and as polite to you as I will always be. And, an asterisk will forever mark your legacy to note your decision to pour salt onto the tangible and deep racial wounds that such art as you are defending represents. Life imitates art – warts and all – and vice versa.

Bill Turner served as Interim President at Kentucky State University and Vice President at UK between 2002 and 2007, respectively.