Crockett statue unveiled on Capitol Hill

A new bronze statue of David Crockett was unveiled Thursday outside the Tennessee State Capitol. The monument stands on the Capitol Hill steps, a location that previously held the statue of Edward Carmack.

Crockett was a congressman from Tennessee who opposed the Indian Removal Act championed by President Andrew Jackson. His vocal stance made it difficult for him to win reelection. After losing his bid, Crockett reportedly told voters, “You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.”

He traveled to Texas to hunt buffalo but soon joined the Texas Revolutionary Army. Crockett died at age 49 defending the Alamo alongside about 30 other Tennesseans. He did not recruit those men, but he was a celebrity to them.

The new statue depicts Crockett in hunting attire, holding a rifle with dogs at his side. He holds a coonskin cap in his hand but does not wear it. In real life, Crockett reserved that headwear for hunting only. He also never used the nickname “Davy.”

The statue replaces the memorial to Edward Carmack, a 19th-century newspaper editor and politician. Carmack was first honored in 1927 as a martyr for prohibition. He was shot in Nashville after an argument with a former publisher who supported his political rival.

Carmack edited the Nashville American, which later became The Tennessean. In 1892, he moved to Memphis and worked on the Commercial newspaper. There, he engaged in a public dispute with Ida B. Wells, a Black activist and newspaper owner. Carmack called for someone to lynch Wells, which led to a mob destroying her office and driving her from the city.

Protesters removed the Carmack statue in 2020 following the killing of George Floyd. By 2021, the removed statue was being stored on a Nashville loading dock. Its current location is not immediately clear.