Public Art to Celebrate a Cincinnati Heroine

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the "Public Art to Celebrate a Cincinnati Heroine" forum at the Woman's City Club of Greater Cincinnati to learn about the soon to be first ever Cincinnati statue celebrating a woman: civil rights icon Marian A. Spencer. This organization is spearheading a fundraising campaign to build and install the statue, slated to be installed and make its appearance on what would have been Spencer's 100th birthday June 28, 2020 at the Women's Committee Garden at Smale Riverfront Park, facing the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge.

Spencer was a woman of many firsts- first African American female elected to Cincinnati City Council, first female president of the Cincinnati chapter of the NAACP, and the first African American president of the Woman's City Club of Greater Cincinnati.

Her big hurrah came July 1952. Her two young sons were watching The Uncle Al Show on T.V. as he invited children to Coney Island waterpark to meet him in person. The boys asked her to take them to the waterpark to meet Uncle Al. At first, Spencer was hesitant, but she ultimately made the call. When the Coney Island rep answered, Spencer told her about the invitation and wanted to know if that extended to Negro children. The rep said that it did not. Mama Spencer wasn't having that! Spencer then shows up at the entrance and was stopped and turned away by an armed guard. She filed a lawsuit and won, desegregating Coney Island.

 At the meeting, biographer Dot Christenson showed a twelve minute clip of an interview with Spencer, and Jenny Ustick, professor in the Public Art and Placemaking Department at the University of Cincinnati discussed the role of public art plays in Cincinnati, memorials,  and representation of women (FYI: Ustick also designed both the James Brown and Ezzard Charles murals in Over the Rhine!).

The final two speakers of the night, Tom Tsuchiya, known for his statues at Great American Ball Park, and apprentice and co-sculptor Gina Erardi, who also collaborated with Ustick on the Ezzard Charles mural, are collaborating on the project.

Commissioned by the club, the statue itself was inspired by her children motivating Spencer to become a civil rights activist. Spencer is depicted as vice-mayor in 1984. The girl is a composite of the four Winton Hills Academy students who won a national contest for a book that they wrote about her. The boy was inspired by Erardi's employer's son. The work is allegorical as the children depicted are meant to represent all children.

The coolest thing about this: It will be interactive. The images will join hands and an empty space is intentionally left between Spencer and the boy so that visitors can join in!

So excited about this! Right now, I'm like a kid at Christmas! Hurry up and let June 2020 come!