Students at Texas A&M began the effort to create a memorial to State Senator Matthew Gaines all the way back in 1998. Gaines was enslaved at birth and remained a slave even after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. Liker thousands of other African Americans in Texas, it took the Union occupation of the state and the now-famous Juneteenth declaration to end his enslavement. In 1869 he was elected to the Texas Legislature and became instrumental in promoting the state’s new public education system, including the creation of a state college under the Morrill Land Grant College Act. As a legislator whose work later assisted in the founding of the school, Texas A&M will unveil a bronze sculpture in his honor on Nov. 19 at 3 p.m.
Gaines had been a slave as a child in Louisiana. He taught himself to read using books smuggled to him by a white boy. He was bought and sold several times and was enslaved in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. He briefly escaped from slavery twice, but both times he was recaptured. After Juneteenth, Gaines became a community leader and eventually a state senator. He had a reputation for advancing public elementary and higher education and defending the voting rights of Black people. He was charged with bigamy and removed from office, although his conviction was later overturned. In 1875 he was arrested for making a speech in which he asserted that “in the eyes of God, blacks are as good as whites; they should have pride and hold their heads up even in troubled times.”
The university itself was a “Whites-Only” school until 1963 when it was forced to end its ban on non-white students.
According to Texas A&M Today:
The artist team of David Alan Clark and Mary Johnson (MJ) Clark won a public art competition call in 2020. They developed a concept and began to sculpt a statue in honor of Gaines at their workshop in Wyoming. Clark and Johnson have a reputation of creating larger-than-life works of art that honor the history of the story they are helping to tell.
“We are particularly drawn to sculptures that depict those underrepresented in public art (women and people of color), and artwork that tells a story that needs to be heard,” said MJ Clark.
The Clarks start every art piece with research in order to create an original and compelling composition that tells as much of the subject’s story and personality as possible so that viewers may connect with it.
In addition to locating existing images of Gaines, the artists wanted to explore interviews about him and his own writing. They found transcripts of his speeches as well as clippings from newspapers reporting on the 12th Texas Legislature. Slowly, they built a picture of Gaines and his personality.
Next, the team created concepts for depicting Gaines. They wanted him to be viewed as a man of the people beginning to climb a low series of steps, carrying books, and reaching a hand out to help the viewer walk up those stairs alongside him.
“Gaines had to teach himself to read as an enslaved child, and books helped him to rise to a position of preacher in his community and senator in the state legislature,” explained MJ Clark. “Books and an education helped him rise up, and he wanted to share that with others.”
The greatest challenge for the artist team was the small number of photos of Gaines. They could not find a profile or full-length photo that would have helped create an exact likeness of him.
The artists wanted to ensure they captured the essence of how Gaines carried himself.
“This sculpture can have an influence on the ever-moving river of students and faculty who will walk past it on a daily basis,” she explained.
Here is photo of the sculptors working on a model of the larger statue.
Students were also able to get one of the campus bus routes renamed after Matthew Gaines.
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