Fact check: Elvis Presley statues in Memphis, Tupelo are not in danger of removal
The claim: Elvis Presley statues to be removed under new guidelines.
Many alarmist claims have spread via social media in the wake of the recent Black Lives Matter marches and other protest events inspired by the killing of George Floyd while in police custody. One of these, repeated on Facebook and other sites, states: "Elvis Presley statues to be removed under new guidelines."
After that introductory sentence, which reads like a headline, the poorly punctuated post continues by suggesting that these "guidelines" may be due to the belief that Elvis borrowed or "appropriated" elements of his musical style from Black musicians.
"Accusations that the Presley family, feigned poverty in order to take up residence in Shake Rag's, poor quarter of Tupelo, and eventually steal the Blues from Black musicians, it has also thrown into doubt the originality of his hip swivel, which many residences believe, was also appropriated from them..." the post claims.
More: Lisa Marie Presley 'heartbroken' over death of son Benjamin Keough, Elvis Presley's grandson, at 27
Why are some people worried?
Although the shared post is almost absurd in many regards on its face (why would a family "feign poverty" in order to live in a "poor quarter" of a small town?), it taps into the anxiety felt by some people and exacerbated by President Donald Trump (he has called protesters "hoodlums") in the wake of the widely disseminated news footage of statues being toppled, vandalized or removed by activists and government authorities in the course of the recent protests.
More: Trump vows to issue executive order protecting statues, says it would 'reinforce' current law
In most cases, the statues were targeted because the person depicted was a Confederate officer or official, or a promoter of racist or white supremacist policies.
Examples of statues affected during the past two months include Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson, removed by city order in Richmond, Virginia; Confederate President Jefferson Davis, removed from outside the capital building in Frankfort, Kentucky; and pro-slavery U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun, removed from Charleston, South Carolina. (Other cities, like Memphis, were relatively progressive: Amid intensifying pressure from local activists, the city removed statues of Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest more than two years ago, in December 2017.)
Overseas, statues of Leopold II, the "Belgian king who brutalized Congo," in the words of The New York Times, are being removed from public squares in Belgium, while a statue of slave trader Edward Colston was pushed into Bristol harbor in England.
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However, in some cases, the vandalized statues depicted people whose achievements had generally been celebrated in U.S. history books, until recently.
A Christopher Columbus statue was decapitated in Boston (once lauded as the man who "discovered" America, Columbus also enslaved and caused the deaths of thousands of indigenous people in the so-called "New World").
Statues of George Washington have been vandalized in Baltimore and Portland, Oregon, because the first president of the United States also was a slave owner. A statue of Matthias Baldwin was defaced in Philadelphia, presumably because the vandals assumed this man in formal 19th century garb was a "colonizer" (the word spray-painted on the statue), when in fact he was an outspoken abolitionist.
The King and his statues
It is likely that these highly publicized cases have contributed more to Elvis statue paranoia than the attacks on the Confederate memorials.
In addition, Elvis always has been subject to accusations of what is now referred to as "cultural appropriation," even as he also was lauded for fusing Black and white sounds. (Sun Records founder Sam Phillips has been quoted as saying: "If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars." Whereas the somewhat disputed quote used to attest to Phillips' business savvy, it now sounds vaguely sinister or exploitative.)
Some Elvis fans are particularly sensitive to this debate, and to the many rumors of racism that have attached to Elvis through the years.
The rumors also may have been exacerbated by a June 1 photograph in The Commercial Appeal that showed protesters on Memphis' Beale Street, gathered momentarily around the entertainment district's famous Elvis statue.
The most famous outdoor Elvis statues are in his original hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi, and his adopted hometown of Memphis.
Erected in 2012, the Tupelo "Homecoming Statue" recreates a famous pose captured by a photographer during Presley's Sept. 26, 1956, "Homecoming" concert at the fairgrounds, when he reached down from the stage toward a fan in the crowd.
A complementary pair of Elvis statues were erected in Tupelo in 2015, near the singer's childhood home, which is Tupelo's most popular tourist attraction. Collectively titled "Becoming," the statues symbolize Elvis' evolution from country boy to international entertainer: The smaller statue depicts 11-year-old Elvis seated on a milk crate, a guitar in his lap, while behind him looms the world-famous adult Elvis in a bell-bottomed jumpsuit, spreading his cape like the wings of an eagle.
Also near the Elvis birthplace is a statue of a guitar-toting 13-year-old Elvis in overalls. The oldest of the Tupelo statues, it was unveiled in 2002.
The most-visited Memphis statue is on the west end of Beale Street, just east of the Orpheum. Erected in 1997, it depicts Elvis as a rock 'n' roller, with bent knees and a guitar hoisted in the direction of his pompadour. The statue replaced an earlier and more upright (literally) Elvis bronze from 1980, which was removed because of, yes, vandalism: Tourists couldn't resist breaking off pieces of fringe from his Western-style shirt. That statue is now inside the Downtown Welcome Center.
Of course, nobody can say what an individual vandal or group of people might choose to do. So it's impossible to say any publicly accessible statue, mural, store window, rose garden, fire hydrant, street lamp or won't be defaced or damaged. But according to Tupelo and Memphis officials speaking to The Commercial Appeal, no "guidelines" exist or are in the process of existing that would mandate the removal of Elvis statues.
In fact, Tupelo Mayor Jason Shelton has been especially disdainful of rumor-mongers. In a June Facebook post, Shelton wrote: "ANTIFA is not coming to Tupelo, Elvis statues are not being removed, you are not the target of some type of global conspiracy, it is impossible to erase history and no one has attempted to do so, covid is not a hoax, you shouldn’t believe and share posts that are obviously false or used as political propaganda, and there is nothing ‘liberal’ about any of the actions that have been taken by our administration regarding these matters.”
In a phone interview with the Associated Press, Shelton said he was addressing “specific allegations I have received either by phone, email or social media.”
Graceland, once the private estate of Presley and now owned by his daughter Lisa Marie Presley, also denied knowledge of any plans to remove Presley's statues in an interview with The Commercial Appeal.
Our rating: False
We rate the claim that Elvis Presley statues are in danger of removal as FALSE because it was not supported by our research. While many statues with ties to slavery are being removed across the globe, local officials deny any such risk associated with Elvis Presley's statues.
Our fact-check sources:
New York Times, "Confederate Statues in Memphis Are Removed After City Council Vote."
New York Times, "Belgium’s King Sends Letter of Regret Over Colonial Past in Congo."
Channel 4 News, "'We have a statue of someone who made their money by throwing our people into water…and now he’s on the bottom of the water.' – Marvin Rees, elected Mayor of Bristol."
CBS Boston, "Beheaded Christopher Columbus Statue In Boston Will Be Removed From North End Park."
The Conversation, "Champion or copycat? Elvis Presley’s ambiguous relationship with black America."
The Independent, "Elvis Presley: How Sun Records boss Sam Phillips discovered a star in 1954."
The Commercial Appeal, "Memphis removes Confederate statues from Downtown parks."
Associated Press, "Mississippi Mayor: ANTIFA not coming, COVID-19 not a hoax."
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Elvis Presley statues in aren't in danger of removal
