Sculpture champions equality, a historic first for Black, Latino and Hispanic Americans

POSTED ON Jul 18, 2022

Last year, the City of Fort Lauderdale in Florida celebrated the first Hispanic American woman to sculpt a piece for Statuary Hall by proclaiming December 2nd as Nilda Comas Day. The master artist is the sculptor of the first state statute of a Black woman in the U.S. Capitol Building representing Florida.

According to the National Sculpture Society, the state of Florida selected Comas from a field of 1,600 applicants to create a statue for the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall collection. Comas’ statue of civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune is the first African American woman to represent a state. Bethune’s dedication to change landed her a role as an adviser to five U.S. presidents and a seat at the founding of the United Nations.

Last week, the University of Florida announced the statue of Mary McLeod Bethune was unveiled at the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, July 13.

Statuary Hall is home to 100 statues of influential figures in American history, with each state contributing two statues for the display. The Bethune statue replaces one of Edmund Kirby Smith, a Confederate general, that was removed in 2021.

Educator, pioneer, and activist Mary McLeod Bethune joins Florida’s other statue of John Gorrie, inventor of the air-cooling machine, UF said in a press release.

Several Florida universities, including UF, participated in a statewide summit hosted by Florida International University on equality in education on July 13-14 in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the statue’s unveiling and unite college student leaders with the potential to follow Bethune’s lead in educational advocacy.

Bethune-Cookman University and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University also took part in the summit. At the symposium, students — including five from UF — attended seminars, tours, round table discussions, and idea exchanges reflecting on Bethune’s legacy.

The statue of Bethune is intended to embody her passion for education and admiration for people. The sculpture depicts Bethune with a stack of books, a graduation cap and gown, a cane, a black rose, and a gentle smile. She is standing atop a marble slab engraved with the state of Florida, her full name, her birth and death dates, and a quote of hers that captures her essence: “Invest in the human soul, who knows, it may be a diamond in the rough.” The marble statue stands 11’ tall and weighs more than 6,000 lbs.

Bethune’s statue was reportedly created from the last piece of statuario marble is taken from Michelangelo’s cave in Italy. It was crafted by Nilda Comas, the first Hispanic American woman to sculpt a piece for Statuary Hall.

UF alumna Yolanda Cash Jackson, a lobbyist for Bethune-Cookman University who joined the statue project in 2016, was in Washington, D.C., for the unveiling.

“During this journey to get Mrs. Bethune to Statuary Hall it really helped me realize no matter your situation in life you can make an impact,” Jackson said. “She was able to bring women together, she was able to bring people from different places together, she was able to bring people who did not look like each other together. She created things where there was a need, and she used the resources she had.”