Effort aims to restore Shively Park statue of Cuban poet, hero, José Martí
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| The bust of Cuban patriot Jose Marti was dedicated at Shively Park in August of 1955. The bust was unveiled by Lois Prood, 16, and Bruce Morrow, 15, (both in white uniforms). They were at the time among 85 Jefferson County teenagers who visited Cuba that summer. C-J FILE photo by James N. Keen. |
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Replace the bust fund For more information, call Shively City Hall at (502) 449-5000. |
By Sheryl Edelen • sedelen@courier-journal.com
A fundraising effort to return the statue of one of Cuba's most revered national heroes to Shively Park -- 55 years after the city received it as a gift of goodwill -- has begun.
The metal bust is of José Martí, a 19th-century poet, journalist and revolutionary credited as a leading voice for the freedom of Cuba from Spanish rule during the late 1800s.
It was installed in Shively Park in 1955 -- in the pre-Castro era -- after a delegation of Jefferson County Junior Ambassadors visited the country. According to stories in The Courier-Journal at the time, then-Cuban President Fulgencio Batista sent the statue and his own junior delegation.
No one is sure how the statue ended up in Shively Park, but it was among several busts of Martí given to cities throughout Cuba and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. But Shively and Tampa, Fla., which has a large Cuban population, were the only two U.S. cities to receive one, according to Antonio de la Cova, a University of North Carolina at Greensboro history professor, Cuban exile and former Louisville resident.
"For the Cuban people, José Martí is like Lincoln or Washington," said Luis Fuentes, a Cuban American who lives in Frankfort and publishes El Kentuckbano, a regional Cuban newspaper. He joined the effort to see the bust re-installed about four months ago.
In 1998, the statue was moved from its original location to make way for Shively's new fire and police building. In 2004, it was disassembled and stored in an Elizabethtown plant owned by Louisville's Muldoon Monument Co.
It is expected to cost about $13,000 to have Muldoon restore the bust and mount it atop a 6- to 7-foot granite pedestal.
Shively city government is handling the fundraising collections and will contribute the park space and a concrete foundation.
When completed, the monument will be about 9 feet tall and stand in a landscaped area with red, white and blue flowers -- the colors of the Cuban flag.
De la Cova, along with the Kentucky Military Museum manager John Trowbridge, began working to see the statue re-installed in 2004.
De la Cova said Cubans in the Louisville area saw the statue as an important touchstone for observances of Cuban pride.
"The monument has always been a rallying point for Cuban exiles to honor Martí and celebrate Cuban patriotic anniversaries," de la Cova said. "Every time I come to Louisville to visit, I make a point to come by the monument. It's like coming home.
"I couldn't believe it was gone."
He wasn't the only one who noticed the statue had gone missing, Shively Mayor Sherry Conner said.
"I've had a lot of people ask about it since I've been mayor," said Conner, who took office in 2004. "People called who'd been on the mission trip in 1955, and come through looking for the bust with their kids and grandkids."
Conner said the city has already received some donations, including $153 from students at Western High School.
For his part, de la Cova said he's e-mailed articles about the fundraising effort to more than 200 Cuban Americans across the country, circulated the information on group blogs and spoken on a Spanish-language radio station in Miami.
He said Cuban exiles from as far away as California have pledged to help with the effort.
For him and other Cubans, replacing the statue will be much like saying thanks to a man they credit with helping change Cuban history.
"José Martí was the Cuban father of independence," he said.
Reporter Sheryl Edelen can be reached at (502) 582-4621.