Controversial Chuck Berry Statue to be Erected in St. Louis

A controversial eight-foot statue of rock musician Chuck Berry was approved to be built on Monday in St. Louis, according to Reuters. Local residents, meanwhile, complained that Berry is a “felon and not a friend of women” and that Berry doesn’t deserve the recognition.

Although a petition gathered around 100 signatures requesting to block or delay the statue was passed to the University City council, the council rejected the last-minute plea.

Elsie Glickert, the 86-year-old opposition leader and former city council member, said that the city was allowing the statue to be built on a new public bike lane. Meanwhile, Joe Edwards, the club’s owner, helped rise over $100,000 in private funds for the statue.

The statue will depict Berry playing his guitar as well as a lit-up wall engraved with the notes to Berry’s 1957 hit song “Johnny B. Goode.” The sidewalk will also be lined with Berry’s lyrics etched onto concrete strips. Berry, 84, is set to appear at the dedication ceremony on July 29, and according to Edwards, the statue should be installed later this week.

Because of Berry’s past convictions, however, protesters like Glickert believe that the statue should not be placed on public property. Supporters like Edwards believe that Berry is St Louis’s “most famous musical native son, who through his music changed race relations and culture around the world.”

Berry had been convicted of armed robbery as a teenager and of tax evasion in 1979. In 1959 after playing in Texas, Berry and his band went to Juarez, Mexico, where he met 14-year-old Janice Escalanti. Berry brought Escalanti to work at a hat check girl at his St. Louis nightclub, Berry’s Club Bandstand. When Escalanti was arrested for prostitution, Berry was also charged with transporting a minor across state lines for prostitution. He served three years in prison and penned songs like “No Particular Place to Go.”

At the University City council meeting, Mayor Shelley Welsch called the statue an “appropriate” and “positive” addition to the strip and insisted that they drop the subject.

“Arguments against the statue should be made on legal grounds,” Welsh said, according to the University City Patch, “not on personal opinions of Mr. Berry and his life.”

This article was originally published on AllMediaNy.com