Two weeks into the Black Lives Matter campaign, homeschooler Jenna Sparks gets mad. This sixteen-year-old descendant of a Confederate ancestor, whose name was Jeptha Jefferson Davis Sparks, has a Black cousin, and seeing so many people in Jessamine who fly the Confederate battle flag angers her. So does walking by the Confederate statue, located just two blocks from her house.
So Jenna writes a petition to “remove and destroy” the statue. Hundreds of locals immediately sign, and her campaign makes the news. An interracial group of ministers led by Pastor Moses of First Baptist Church circulates Jenna’s petition. Then they write and submit their own to the judge. Jessamine County seems poised to reckon with its sordid record on race and Civil War memory.
Timestamps
00:00 Sitting on her front porch, Jenna explains why she wants to destroy the statue.
07:58 Pastor Moses starts an interracial ministerial committee.
14:00 Pastor Max Vanderpool describes racial conditions in Jessamine County.
18:25 The ministerial committee ramps up.
30:48 A “Black Lives Matter” rally in Wilmore
38:08 Resistance emerges.
47:09 Antistatue activists resolve to continue their campaign.
Transcript: Visit www.rebelonmain.com/episode4/transcript.
Engage
Check out our website at rebelonmain.com.
To support future creative projects, contribute here: rebelonmain.com/support.
Email
[email protected] to let me know what you think of this episode of Rebel on Main.
Please give a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.
Resources
For pictures of Jenna, Pastor Moses, and the Wilmore march, head to https://www.rebelonmain.com/episode4
George Wright, A History of Blacks In Kentucky: In Pursuit of Equality, 1890-1980
Michael Emerson and Christian Smith, Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America
On the Fallen Monuments Park in Moscow, see https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/fallen-monument-park.
Production team
Writer and Host: David R. Swartz
Original Music, Sound Design, and Mixing: Barry Blair
Story Editor: Stephen Smith
Artistic Design: Josh Smith and Lisa Weaver Swartz
Next episode: In Episode 5—Rival Monument—a very different narrative of the Civil War emerges from the ground.