Pittsburgh mayor favors moving controversial Stephen Foster statue

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Pittsburgh (PA) Mayor Bill Peduto said Friday that he thinks the city's Stephen Foster statue should be displayed somewhere other than the publicly owned entrance to Schenley Park because it offends some residents.

The mayor was quick to add that he was conveying his personal opinion and the fate of the 117-year-old landmark that has stirred controversy for years would be decided only after a thorough examination of its history and meaning.

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Critics believe the statue of the famous songwriter Foster standing with a black slave strumming a banjo at his feet is demeaning for many, particularly blacks.

Read more at:
http://triblive.com/local/allegheny/12660439-74/pittsburgh-mayor-favors-moving-controversial-stephen-foster-statue

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1. Excerpt: 'Stephen Foster & Co.'

KEN EMERSON (EDITOR)

Although some of Foster's blackface lyrics are abhorrent — the second verse of "Oh! Susanna" is a shocker — at their best they imbue African Americans with a dignity and pathos that were unprecedented. No songwriter had called a black woman a lady before "Nelly Was a Lady." Unbeknown to most of the throng that sings bowdlerized lyrics on Derby Day, "My Old Kentucky Home" does not celebrate cavaliers and crinolines in the Old South — it invokes Uncle Tom's Cabin and indicts slavery for breaking up black families ...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126035325