ANDREW VAN SICKLE

“I moved into the West End in July of 2014 and immediately came to love the neighborhood, the quiet, the parents walking their kids to school every morning. I really saw a different side of the West End versus what I had heard.

“I was walking my dog, and on the corner of Ezzard Charles and Cutter, that first weekend I was there, five little Black kids from the neighborhood came up. They were curious about my dog, started petting the dog, asked me about my dog. And then I asked them a very obvious question; I thought it would be easy. And that was, ‘Hey, do you kids know who Ezzard Charles is?’ and one of the older kids pointed to the street sign, which was kind of a correct response. And then one of the other kids eagerly said he was mayor. And I was like, oh, okay, I've just come from Riverside Drive over in Covington, where they have plenty of statues of different types of Kentucky’s historical heroes. And I'm looking across the street and there is this barren park with two sidewalks.

“That started about a one-year journey of studying Ezzard Charles—how remarkable of an individual he was—by reading the books. A man who spoke four languages, which was amazing for anybody. A guy who served his country in the army, an entrepreneur, a lover of jazz, and a supporter of jazz musicians.

“I was like, ‘Okay, so there needs to be a statue. It needs to be tall, it needs to be on a plinth, an old school conservative statue. And it needs to be you know, tall. So as these kids walk through the park, they have something to look at.’ After about a year and a half I finally had something to get this going.

Over a year later [after this photo at the unveiling of the statue], it's become an area where people in the West End now can go talk to their neighbors. There are four benches there. I see people on a daily basis going there with their kids, doing boxing moves, conversing. It's also been very, very well respected as well. So that's what gives me some great pride that I could do something like that with the community.”