David Manuel, American, born 1940
John Wayne, American, 2020
Amid the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020, it was suggested that the Orange County, California John Wayne Airport name be changed because of the white supremacist comments the actor had made in interviews during his lifetime and the attitudes toward indigenous peoples commonly expressed in Wayne’s films. Residents of Winterset, Iowa, the town of Wayne’s birth, quickly joined the debate through local news and social media. Many expressed anxieties that this local statue of the actor might be removed. Others stated their disdain that Wayne was prominently featured on a main street named for him while Black botanist George Washington Carver, arguably a more important figure in the town’s history, was only commemorated in a small alleyway park one block away. The over-life-sized statue of Wayne in the cowboy attire common in his movies remains standing, continuing to raise the questions: who gets celebrated and where? Label by Morgan Brittain