Australian town defends its ‘long-valued and admired’ statue of an enslaved African American child

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August 4, 2026

Kat Wong, The Guardian

**The Jocko Graves statue in Maitland, New South Wales, has been in the town’s main street since some time between 1881 and 1891. Photograph: Percy Sternbeck/Coalfields Local History Association**

A 150-year-old statue of an enslaved African American child in the middle of a regional Australian town has ignited a furore over race, censorship and what defines art.

But in 2022, Osvaldo Budet, a Puerto Rican artist, began questioning how the statue, known as Maitland’s “little black boy”, ended up there – and why locals thought an ornament widely considered in the US to be a racist caricature was OK.

The Jocko figure was a common form of lawn jockey and advertised as a “darkey” model, and the phrase “lawn jockey” itself came to be considered a racial slur.

“The role of Jocko Graves, standing at attention as a hitching post to secure animals, is also demeaning and is a powerful expression of race and class inequity.”

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