The Schuler Statue, named for its sculptor, Hans K. Schuler, was installed on Natchitoches’ Front Street in 1927. It now stands on the grounds of the LSU Rural Life Museum.
The old gentleman no longer tips his hat directly in the public eye, yet he still stirs controversy. But reader Cynthia Jardon already knew that when she inquired to his whereabouts — “he” being the bronze sculpture of a raggedly dressed Black man bowing in humility.
It’s now officially known as the Schuler Statue, named for its creator, Baltimore sculptor Hans K. Schuler. But for decades, the man tipping his hat was known as “Uncle Jack,” named for Natchitoches cotton planter and businessman Jackson Lee “Jack” Bryan, who commissioned the piece in 1926 for $4,300. It was installed on Natchitoches’ Front Street the following year.
The “Uncle Jack” moniker, alone, was considered racially offensive, hearkening back to the Jim Crow era when Black men were referred to as “uncle” in place of the respectful “mister.” However, its racial connotations weren’t nearly as demeaning as the statue’s original name, “The Good Darkie.”
The Schuler Statue as it appeared in the days when it stood on Natchitohes’ Front Street. Its image of a Black Man tipping his hat while bowing in submission, along with offensive wording on its oirignal plaque, has always stirred controversy.
Yet neither name was official — Schuler never titled it.
“I never saw the statue when it was in Natchitoches, but I remember seeing photos of it,” said Jardon, an Alexandria reader. “And I’ve talked to people who have told me stories about it.”
Their stories piqued Jardon’s curiosity. She knew the statue was taken down in the 1960s, but what happened to it afterward?
“I’ve seen photos of it standing in a circular roundabout at the Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge, but I’m told that it’s no longer there, either,” she said. “So, where is it?”
The statue is still a part of the LSU Rural Life Museum landscape, but it now occupies a less conspicuous spot.
A close look at the Schuler Statue at the LSU Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The statue was installed on Natchitoches’ Front Street during the Jim Crow Era and has always stirred controversy. It was donated to the museum in 1972. The museum tells its story through interpretive signage. Staff photo by Robin Miller
“It stands next to the church on our grounds,” director Bill Stark said. “Our previous director, David Floyd, had it moved there partly because it was practical — there was already a good road base there to put it on — and partly because of its historical significance.”
The church is the 1870 College Grove Baptist Church building, which was moved to the museum grounds in 1973 from College Point near Convent.
Meanwhile, Civil Rights-era protests from Natchitoches’ Black community prompted the statue’s removal from Front Street in 1968. One story has it being toppled and tossed into what is now Cane River Lake, which cuts through the middle of downtown Natchitoches. This has never been substantiated.
What has been documented is the story of its peaceful removal and storage at a private farm until 1972, when Bryan’s daughter, Jo Bryan Docournau, donated it to the Rural Life Museum, where it was placed in the circle near the entrance at Essen Lane in 1974. Floyd moved it to the church location in 2009.
The Schuler Statue stands in front of the old College Grove Baptist Church building on the grounds of the LSU Rural Life Museum. It once stood at the museum’s entrance.
“At that time, there were renewed complaints about it,” Stark said. “It kind of forced the museum to think about it, and I’m speaking about this secondhand, so this is my recollection of what I was told. But one of the challenges with it had to do with where it was, because it greeted you before you ever got to the front door.”
So, the statue of a man tipping his hat appeared friendly, but its fraught history and background set a tone that didn’t match the museum’s mission or persona.
“And it certainly didn’t represent the mindset that the museum was,” Stark said. “The museum is about the rural working classes of Louisiana, that is it’s free and enslaved people. It’s Black, and it’s White. Louisiana, more so than many other places, has a blending of races and cultures, and Steele Burden set this museum up so that we could talk about the hardships, the trials, the vision and the inspiration of these people.”
And it was Burden, the museum’s first director and caretaker, who brought the statue to the museum not because it was racial but because of its historical significance.
The man depicted in the Schuler Statue appears to be tipping his hat to the old College Grove Baptist Church on the grounds of the LSU Rural Life Museum.
So, why did Bryan commission something so contentious? The museum answers this with a direct quote from Bryan in its 2021 report, “Reimagining & Expanding Interpretation: Moving Towards Museum Accreditation.”
“In 1935 Bryan remarked when asked what inspired the idea: ‘I was always impressed with the kind attention which the old darkies gave me. I had long wanted to do something for them, and I chose this way of showing my gratitude and the gratitude of many people of the South toward the negroes.’”
The inscription on the statue’s original plaque echoes Bryan’s sentiment: “In grateful recognition of the arduous and faithful service of The Good Darkies of Louisiana.”
“With nostalgic memories of the Old South, Bryan believed that he was ‘doing the right thing’ by commemorating those ‘old darkies,'” the museum’s report continues. “On the contrary, he was perpetuating a controversial racial stereotype — a nonthreatening caricature consistent with the negative representation of African American.”
The Schuler Statue was commissioned by Natchitoches planter and businessman Jackson Lee Bryan for $4,600 in 1926. It was installed on Natchitoches’ Front Street in 1927, where it stirred controversy and was taken down in 1968. It is now part of the LSU Rural Life Musem’s collection, which has installed interpretive signs to tell its story.
Late poet and author Maya Angelou echoed this point the 1997 National Association of Welfare Parents and Associates conference: “Uncle Jack is the quintessential obsequious Negro servant … The droop of his shoulders bears witness not only to his years but more specifically to his own understanding of his place as a poor black in a rich white world.”
Rural Life’s report also points out that the statue wasn’t nicknamed “Uncle Jack” until it came to the museum, and in 1989, state legislators and community members voiced concerns the offending language on the plaque.
So, the museum covered it.
“This change became a pivot point,” the report said. “The Rural Life Museum’s administration began the decades-long dialogue on how to interpret life on plantations, resulting in the ‘reimagining’ project.”
“We do receive comments about the statue,” Stark said. “Probably the biggest time for these comments was shortly after I took over as director in 2020, because that was a time when we were examining a lot of our pieces of public art. People were talking about monuments going into museums and that sort of thing, and we were looking at it very closely internally.”
The Schuler Statue stands on teh grounds of the LSU Rural Life Museum near the old College Grove Baptist Church building. The statue, especially its original plaque, has always stirred controversy.
The statue became part of museum’s interpretive planning process, which not only involved staff but also such community groups as Dialogue on Race Louisiana, along with people who knew Burden and his vision.
Today, the Schuler Statue is fronted by four interpretive signs explaining its historical significance, the reason behind is continued display, its context within the Jim Crow era and its history. And the original plaque? It’s been uncovered to tell the complete story.
“In many ways, that statue very much does speak to hardships and trials,” Stark said. “When you see it, you think of how it was erected in 1927, but you see that it’s out of the 19th century. And it’s a touchstone for when we start thinking about how far we’ve come, as well as how far we still have to go.”
Curious Louisiana is seeking information for two submitted questions. If you have information about the swan boats that were operated in Audubon Park in New Orleans between the 1920s and 1970s or J. Seward Johnson’s bronze statue of a policeman writing a ticket that once stood in front of the Engergy Centre on Poydras Street in New Orleans, please email romiller@theadvocate.com.
