On a warm Monday morning, a week after protests broke out in front of the courthouse, a man with short-cropped hair stands beside the statue. Legs astride with an enormous handgun in a holster on his left side, Brandon is guarding “history.” When I approach him, he explains that the statue is not a monument to slavery. Referencing the inscription on the statue’s foundation, he says that it honors “soldiers who have fought and died in this country.”

The second episode of Rebel on Main investigates Brandon’s claim by recounting the bizarre origins of Jessamine’s statue. Initially ordered, but not paid for, by a different town that wanted a Union statue, the unclaimed monument was purchased at a 90 percent discount by the county fathers and then regalvanized into a Confederate identity. Before a raucous crowd of 3,000 supporters shrieking rebel yells, the statue is unveiled. The Lost Cause has won Jessamine County.

A century later, conditions have changed. Brandon still believes in the Lost Cause, but critics are denouncing it as heresy. He feels embattled by gay activists, Black Lives Matter, and woke historians who want to “erase history.” Frustrated and angry that his Civil War narrative is being threatened, he stands vigil, guarding the statue from protesters who want to destroy memories of Confederate courage.

Engage

• Check out our website at rebelonmain.com.
• To support future creative projects, contribute here: rebelonmain.com/support.
• Email swartz@asbury.edu 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.

Timestamps

00:00 David talks with Brandon, armed defender of the statue

05:56 Story of Bennett Young, the model/architect of Jessamine’s statue

09:00 Sam Flora of the Sons of Confederate Veterans tells the story of St. Albans Raid.

25:35 Story of how the statue was conceived, built, and dedicated

39:29 David wrestles with Brandon’s political opinions

40:32 Robert P. Jones analyzes the “end of white Christian America”

42:42 David analyzes the social context of the statue in the 1890s and how it mirrors conditions in the 2020s

51:51 David wrestles with whether his historical analysis is condescending to Brandon—and the architects of the statue

53:30 David, Brandon, and Judge West have a conversation

Transcript: Visit http://www.rebelonmain.com/episode2.

Resources

• For photos of the statue, the St. Albans raiders, and other historical artifacts, head to rebelonmain.com/episode2.
• Michelle Sherburne, The St. Albans Raid: Confederate Attack on Vermont
• Anne Marshall, Creating a Confederate Kentucky: The Lost Cause and Civil War Memory in a Border State
• Gaines Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865 to 1913
• For a fascinating PRRI study about how residents in thirteen southern states think about memorials in public spaces, see “Two Histories, One Future.”

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 3—Ghosts of Jessamine—David tells excruciating stories of lynchings, rapes, and violence.

In June 2020 a Black Lives Matter protest erupts in Jessamine County, Kentucky. It soon transforms into a campaign to destroy the Confederate statue that looms behind them on Main Street.

As historian and local resident David Swartz covers this effort, he also investigates the history of this beautiful corner of the Bluegrass. He finds lots of hidden stories, including a disastrous expulsion of formerly enslaved refugees from a Union Army camp in 1864. Over 100 women and children die of exposure in a snowstorm. The incident implicates not just enslavers, but also the nation.

150 years later, Americans are still reckoning with violence against Black citizens. As protesters in Jessamine County chant, “Say her name! Breonna was asleep!” big trucks circle the courthouse, revving their engines in protest against the protest. A fierce backlash emerges.

Why, just months after the killing of Breonna Taylor in nearby Louisville, do so many resist the removal of a monument to men who fought to enslave Black people? Why, a full fifty years after the civil rights movement, are so many still so reluctant to say that “Black lives matter”? Why, 150 years after the Civil War, do so many want to maintain a statue honoring the Confederacy?

Engage

• Check out our website at rebelonmain.com.
• To support future creative projects, contribute here: rebelonmain.com/support.
• Email swartz@asbury.com to offer your thoughts on Rebel on Main.
• Please give a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.

Timestamps

00:00 Pastor Moses Radford denounces the statue as sign of hatred, bigotry, and racism

03:24 Physical description of the statue

06:00 David covers Black Lives Matter protests at the courthouse

13:30 Historian Amy Murrell Taylor tells the history of Camp Nelson, a Union supply depot and emancipation center.

27:05 Tracy K. Smith, Emeritus Poet Laureate of the United States, recites her poem about the expulsion.

28:50 Taylor describes the heartbreaking expulsion of refugee women and children.

36:57 Protests turn toward the Confederate statue

44:45 David interviews Judge David West

Transcript: Visit https://www.rebelonmain.com/episode1.

Resources

• For a similar podcast investigation about a Confederate symbol in Kentucky, check out Rebel Spirit by Akilah Hughes.
• Amy Murrell Taylor, Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps
• Tracy K. Smith, Wade in the Water: Poems
• For more on Camp Nelson, see https://www.nps.gov/cane/index.htm.
• For photos of Pastor Moses, the protests, and the statue, head to rebelonmain.com/episode1.

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 2—Defending History—David recounts the bizarre origins of the Confederate statue—and interviews a man who guards the statue from BLM protests with a big gun on his hip.

It’s a Civil War statue unlike any other—one with a rebel belt and a Union hat. Join historian David Swartz on a podcast investigation of his hometown Confederate statue that stands on Main Street in Jessamine County, Kentucky.