GALENA ? A black lawn jockey statue on display outside the Galena Mining & Historical Museum for more than 20 years will be moved inside the building after a complaint from a biracial couple.

The museum board took the action Tuesday night. Members defended the statue, but some cited concerns that it might be stolen following a story in The Joplin Globe detailing the views raised by Terri and Geff Jackson, who moved to Galena from California about a year ago.

“It doesn’t take much publicity for something to go wrong,” said board President Gene Russell. He referred to the statue as a hitching post, and he and other board members said there had been no prior complaints about it.

Besides moving the statue into the museum annex, the board decided to post with it an item from a Web site about the history of lawn jockey statues. The information, which does not site a source, says such statues originated as a tribute to a slave who died in service to George Washington during the Revolutionary War.

Some historians say that later such statues were used as markers on the Underground Railroad system that helped slaves escape to freedom. According to those accounts, green ribbons tied to a statue meant safety, while red ribbons meant fleeing slaves should keep going.

The Jacksons had complained about the statue being a racist symbol and said they noticed it their first day in the southeastern Kansas community.

“It’s very degrading,” Terri Jackson, who is white, told The Globe. Her husband, who is black, said he is resigned to racism in a small town but is discouraged that someone had to point it out to officials.

“This is 2005,” he said.

Terri Jackson had gone to the museum to complain and said a worker there told her that her husband should get over it. Later she went to City Hall about the matter and was told the city has no connection with the museum, which gets funding from the Galena School District.

Russell, former superintendent of the Galena schools, had said he would bring it up to the board at Tuesday night’s meeting. Terri Jackson, but not her husband, was at the meeting and she asked that the statue be moved inside. She thanked the board for its action.