More from Nancy O’Donnell Hale on Nathaniel Rochester: “Defaced, erased, should statue be replaced?”

Posted by [email protected] | Sep 23, 2020 | Social Issues | 0 |

6/26/20, Mt. Hope Cemetery. Nancy O’Donnell Hale at the gravesite of Nathaniel Rochester [Photo: David Kramer] From If Nathaniel must stay, add Ned to South Wedge Monument to City Founder by Nancy O’Donnell Hale

I first met Nancy O’Donnell Hale, editor of The Wedge, on June 26th in Mount Hope Cemetery where we visited the gravesite of Nathaniel Rochester.

The Wedge, August/September 2020 Vol. 42 No. 4

Earlier in the day, Nancy and I discussed a piece she wanted to write on a possible addition to or replacement for the statue of Rochester in Nathaniel Square on Alexander Street in the South Wedge. I could tell Nancy had the right journalistic stuff when she agreed to meet at the grave within the hour.

The photo of Nancy in Mt. Hope — demonstrating her seriousness of purpose on the issue — became part of If Nathaniel must stay, add Ned to South Wedge Monument to City Founder by Nancy O’Donnell Hale. Nancy makes a persuasive case that a statue of Ned, a slave owned and freed by Rochester, should be added to Nathaniel Square park.

In the current edition of The Wedge, in “Defaced, erased, should statue be replaced?” (The Wedge, August/September 2020), Nancy describes her visit to Nathaniel Square and elaborates on what steps have been taken to further community discussion, including a letter written by South Wedge Planning Committee board chair Frank Logan to Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren asking that the statue be removed.

“Defaced, erased, should statue be replaced?”, Nancy O’Donnell Hale,The Wedge, August/September 2020 Vol. 42 No. 4. pages 1 and 11

SEE ALSO

If Nathaniel must stay, add Ned to South Wedge Monument to City Founder by Nancy O’Donnell Hale

On the Spray Painting of “Reflecting” by John Hoffman

An open invitation to a conversation in Nathaniel Square

On the defacing of “Reflecting” in Nathaniel Square and restoring the grave of “America’s first professional racist” in Mt. Hope Cemetery

Reflecting on “Reflecting” with Pepsy Kettavong

About The Author

[email protected]

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones. So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.