In Newmarket, Calls To Put Up Statue Of Black Revolutionary War Hero

John Herman’s blockprint art honoring Wentworth Cheswill. (Sean Hurley/NHPR)

With statues coming down around the country in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, NHPR’s Sean Hurley recently heard about one town in New Hampshire that is considering putting one up.

Health care reporter Brian Ward is Black and 28 and lives in Newmarket. He says he’s never seen a statue honoring a person of color his entire life – but then takes it back.

“I do remember one Black statue,” he says, “it was Louis Armstrong at the Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans. I think it was the first and only Black statue I’ve ever seen.”

Ward knows there are others: Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington D.C., Jackie Robinson at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. But are there any statues featuring Black Americans that aren’t tied to race, music, or sports, he asks?

“It can’t just be ‘Oh, we have a great Black American.’”, Ward says. “Can we just treat anyone who did something good for America in the same light? And if we just look at the straight numbers it’s all white statues right now. And you know, we could add a few more.”

If Newmarket councilor and restaurant owner Jon Kyper, who is white, has his way, a statue honoring a great Black American and former town resident, Wentworth Cheswill, will soon be commissioned.

“The first battle of The Revolution was not in Concord,” Kyper tells me, “it was actually technically in Portsmouth. The first sort of like engagement with the British troops at New Castle. And Wentworth Cheswill was the first person to round up people, and in some ways instigated this first battle of The Revolution.”

Read the rest of this story at NHPR’s website.