Laotian American creates a neighborhood memorial
By Ben Dobbin/AP
In the middle of a neighborhood green sit Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony. It’s the early days of their friendship, the mid-1800s. They’re not yet old, nor famous the world over, but over a pot of tea, they’re probably finding time to dwell on the dynamic causes that draw them together: Abolishing slavery and delivering women the vote.
“Let’s Have Tea,” a bronze sculpture of the civil rights crusaders, will be officially unveiled in tiny Susan B. Anthony Square in Rochester, N.Y., on Sunday, 81 years to the day after American women were extended the right to vote.
This intimate memorial is all the more approachable and intriguing for placing heroic figures in an informal setting and on a scale only slightly larger than life-size.
Dispensing with pedestals, creator Pepsy Kettavong placed the pioneer feminist and the former slave face-to-face in sturdy Victorian chairs. At their side is a table holding a teapot, two cups and two volumes — one possibly a law book, the other a collection of poetry.
“They’re not talking about any particular issue, but they both are anxious to hear what each is thinking,” Kettavong said. “You’re not quite sure who’s talking or who’s listening, so you have that balance. We want to make them appear as equals.”
At the same time, he said, their demeanors convey a sense of grievance, a determined belief that “it’s just a matter of time to get their message across.”
An 11-year-old onlooker, Sadiya Curtis, was thrilled at the prospect of having a graceful work of art within view of her front door. “It has very special people,” she said.
At Kettavong’s urging, she admitted she plans to jump up in their laps and run her hands across their expressive hands and faintly smiling faces.
“It’s going to be great to see the kids climbing up on this thing,” said Kettavong, 29, who at age 8 escaped with his family from Communist-led Laos in a canoe in 1980. After two years in a Thai refugee camp, they found sanctuary in the United States.
Kettavong got his idea for the sculpture after moving his art studio to a house overlooking the square, just down the road from the Madison Street house where Anthony was arrested for daring to vote in 1872. She lived there from 1866 until her death in 1906 at age 86.
Douglass spent 25 of his most influential years as an orator and abolitionist in Rochester, publishing The North Star journal on Main Street. Plans are inching forward to open a “Douglass education center” in a long-vacant Victorian hotel a block from Anthony’s red-brick house, which is now a museum chronicling the women’s rights movement.
Both were active in the anti-slavery and suffragist movements. They met for the first time in 1848 when she was 28 and he was 33.
“The sculpture is not bigger than life, yet when you go up to it, you feel as if there’s power there, the power a person can have when they’re working for the good of all,” said Lorie Barnum, the Anthony museum’s executive director.
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