Trump administration to reinstall toppled confederate statue of Albert Pike
It was the only statue depicting a Confederate leader in Washington DC until demonstrators used ropes to pull down the structure outside of the Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters. They then doused the figure in lighter fluid and set it ablaze on live television.
President Trump - then in his first-term - immediately called for the statue to be put back up, but it has remained in storage ever since. Officials now hope to get the statue back up by October, as they shared a photo of a worker removing corrosion and paint from the site. 'Site preparation to repair the statue's damaged masonry plinth will begin shortly, with crews repairing broken stone, mortar joints and mounting elements,' the National Park Service said. It added that the move to reinstall the statue is in accordance with executive orders Trump signed to beautify Washington DC and restore 'truth and sanity to American history.'
Under the order, Trump directed Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to determine whether statues have been removed since the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 to 'perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.' The Pike statue has long been a source of contention in Washington DC. It was originally dedicated in 1901 at the behest of the Freemasons, who successfully lobbied Congress to grant them land for the statue they said would honor Pike's 32 years as Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient Rite of Scottish Freemasonry.
Congress agreed to give the Masons the land so long as Pike would be depicted in civilian, and not military clothing. The DC City Council called for its removal for the first time in 1992, and Delegate to the House of Representatives Eleanor Holmes Norton (pictured) has introduced multiple bills in Congress to get it removed in the decades that followed, NBC Washington reports. One such resolution referred to Pike as a 'chief founder of the post Civil War Ku Klux Klan,' a claim the Masons strongly deny. But Pike did lead a regimen of Native Americans in Arkansas who sided with the Confederacy and were accused of scalping Union troops in an 1862 battle.
He eventually received a pardon from President Andrew Johnson for his wartime actions and went on to become a prominent member of the Freemasons. During the riots in 2020, protesters spray painted the statue, decrying Pike as a 'racist' and sharing their support for the Black Lives Matter movement. It was one of many such Confederate statues toppled that summer, which Trump decried in his first term. 'Very sad to see States allowing roving gangs of wise guys, anarchists & looters, many of them having no idea what they are doing, indiscriminately ripping down our statues and monuments to the past,' he tweeted at the time. 'Some are great works of art, but all represent our History & Heritage, both the good and the bad. 'It is important for us to understand and remember, even in turbulent and difficult times, and learn from them. Knowledge comes from the most unusual of places!'
The president also hit out at police for 'not doing their job as they watch a statue be ripped down & burn[ed]' after it was reported that officers did not respond to the scene until approximately an hour after the crowds gathered - despite police headquarters being mere feet away, WUSA reports. By then, the statue had already been toppled and torched, with officers left only able to extinguish the flames. In the years since, Delegate Holmes Norton has lobbied for the statue to be placed in a museum.
'I've long believed Confederate statues should be placed in museums as historical artifacts, not remain in locations that imply honor,' she told WUSA on Monday. 'President Trump's longstanding determination to honor Confederate General Albert Pike by restoring and reinstalling the Pike statue is as indefensible as it is morally objectionable,' she continued. She went onto claim that Pike 'served dishonorably' and noted that he 'took up arms against the United States, misappropriated funds and was ultimately imprisoned by his fellow own troops. He resigned in disgrace after committing a war crime and dishonoring even his own Confederate military service.'
Holmes Norton then announced that she will take action to prevent the statue from going back up. 'Given the NPS announcement today that it will restore and reinstall the statue, I plan to reintroduce my bill, which would permanently remove the statue of Pike and authorize the Secretary of the Interior to donate the statue to a museum or a similar entity,' she said. 'A statue honoring a racist and a traitor has no place on the streets of DC,' she declared.
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