Kentucky sculptor Ed Hamilton, 73, is impressively agile for a man of almost any age. On a seasonably warm fall afternoon, he easily ascends a four-foot plinth supporting a bronze statue of an enslaved man named York, who "belonged" to the famed American explorer William Clark.
Hamilton, who is showing me around Louisville—a city eerily emptied out by coronavirus realities and sustained civil unrest tied to the police killing of Breonna Taylor—has spotted a bit of gunk covering York’s right eye.
“OK, brother York, we have to keep your freedom vision clear,” Hamilton says, using a red handkerchief to dab at the eye of the monument, which looks northward toward the Ohio River from a downtown park.
