It may have taken a decade for Richard Pryor’s hometown of Peoria, Illinois to give the comic legend the props he’s due … but thanks to 75-year-old sculptor Preston Jackson, who’s also from the Midwest town, the a nine-foot-tall bronze Richard Pryor statue now stands tall.
“Creating the sculpture turned out to be the easy part. Convincing other locals that the city’s most famous native son was worthy of public recognition was considerably harder.”
While Jackson, sculpture and co-founder of Peoria’s Contemporary Art Center, celebrates the completion of his Pryor masterpiece that doesn’t mean his community joins him. “So let me get this right,” one Peoria resident wrote in a letter to the Peoria Journal Star in 2013. “We’re gonna put up a statue of a terribly foul-mouthed, drug-ingesting comic as a role model for our kids to look up to and imitate? I’ll pass, thank you!”
What’s out there …
“He [Jackson] argued that the influential social critic was more than just an outspoken comedian, that he was also an important — and thoroughly misunderstood — human being. “He was on the level of W.E.B. DuBois, Frederick Douglass and Mark Twain and all these people who forced us to open our eyes and look at ourselves,” Jackson told The Washington Post. “He made us socially aware of race and politics and the things this country is talking about right now, such as police brutality.” “The difference,” Jackson added, “was that he could talk about it in a way that would make you — and the policeman who beat you up — smile at the same time.”
If Albert Pike can have a statue in D.C. Richard Pryor can have a statue in Peoria.
hey Charles manson has followers and can receive love letters and have rock musicians cover his tunes and have a movie done about his mass murders and cult so whats wrong with a pyror statue.
if its the drugs oh well robin Williams was loved by many and he was a drug addict but I forgot its okay for whites to do drugs because they’re white and don’t come from poor backgrounds like black people.
its okay for Andrew dice clay to say the f word a 100 times while grabbing his dick and degrade women only whites can do it and be praised.
only whites can serve satan in their music while the black artists asre damned and going to hell for doing so.
lets not forget pryor gave robin Williams his start and peter optimus prime Cullen.
I think they are upset with the fact the statue looks really good !
Plus it’s a statue of an African American !!!!!
So the red necks gonna complain !
It’s mighty funny how that music and dance stealing, drug addicted Elvis Presley can be found memorialized all over the wolrd but it’s an issue for a Richard Pryor statue to be placed in his hometown.
I’m done…
Exactly !!,
ALL HAIL ELVIS THE PILL POPPER WHO BELIEVED IN NEW AGE AND CARRIED HIS URANTIA BIBLR EVERYWHERE HE WENT.
WONDER DID ELVIS FLUSH WHEN HE CROAKED ON THE TOILET.
WHITE SUPREMACY CONTINUES TO BE SHOWN LEFT AND RIGHT HOW MANY EXAMPLKES NEED TO BE SHOWN THAT WHITES DON’T CARE ABOUT BLACKS.
IF ONLY WE COULD LEAVE ALL THESE3 WHITE GIRLS ALONE BUT THATSA ALL BLACK MEN STRIVE FOR THE MORE WHITE GIRLS HE GET MORE STATUS POINTS HE GETS.
PRYOR WAS A GOOD COMEDIAN AND ACTOR HE DID NO MORE DRUGS THAN ANYBODY ELSE IN HOLLYWOOD.
ROBVIN WILLIAMS, AND JOHN BELUSHI WAS SERIOUS ADDICTS.
Peoria is a hour or more from where I live. It’s know as the nerve center for the KKK. So for no town support it dose not surprise me.
I am from Peoria, a friend of the family, and know the artist. This is definitely a long time coming. They thought making a street after him would suffice,but this is besutiful!
Racist town forgit anout all that revenue he bought when his bio pic was filmed there. Don’t even think they gave him a key to the city.
Thanks ,Richard ,Jr. ,and Preston Jackson for keeping on to get him immortalized!