Over the holiday weekend, President Donald Trump announced the creation of a new "National Garden of American Heroes" that will contain statues depicting "historically significant Americans" and other historical figures like Christopher Columbus.
The order comes as protest movements and activist groups, buoyed by the support of historic preservation groups, destroy or remove memorials dedicated to sordid individuals and causes located around the country, including monuments honoring the confederacy, Christopher Columbus, and other individuals who held racist views or perpetuated violence against Black and Indigenous peoples.
The text of the executive order announcing the sculpture park, states that statues could be dedicated to "the Founding Fathers, those who fought for the abolition of slavery or participated in the underground railroad, heroes of the United States Armed Forces, recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor or Presidential Medal of Freedom, scientists and inventors, entrepreneurs, civil rights leaders, missionaries and religious leaders, pioneers and explorers, police officers and firefighters killed or injured in the line of duty, labor leaders, advocates for the poor and disadvantaged, opponents of national socialism or international socialism, former Presidents of the United States and other elected officials, judges and justices, astronauts, authors, intellectuals, artists, and teachers."
The order establishes the Task Force for Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes that will set out planning the park.
The task force is to be led by the Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt and will include the Administrator of General Services as well as the leaders of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP); and other executive branch officers or employees.
This group will investigate a potential site for the park as well as articulate a plan for which statues will be presented there and how the park will be designed. The order also creates a national collection of statues that will be available for temporary installation around the country.
Additionally, the order states that any statue or work of art commissioned for the park "shall be a lifelike or realistic representation of that person, not an abstract or modernist representation."
The executive order directs this group to produce a feasibility study for the park within 60 days and that the park itself open by July 4, 2026.
Figures mentioned in the order:
• John Adams
• Susan B. Anthony
• Clara Barton
• Daniel Boone
• Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
• Henry Clay
• Davy Crockett
• Frederick Douglass
• Amelia Earhart
• Benjamin Franklin
• Billy Graham
• Alexander Hamilton
• Thomas Jefferson
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Abraham Lincoln
• Douglas MacArthur
• Dolley Madison
• James Madison
• Christa McAuliffe
• Audie Murphy
• George S. Patton, Jr
.• Ronald Reagan
• Jackie Robinson
• Betsy Ross
• Antonin Scalia
• Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Harriet Tubman
• Booker T. Washington
• George Washington
• Orville and Wilbur Wright
![Bart Everson](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jefferson_Davis_Monument_Foundation.jpg"){kind=link}
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Figures mentioned in the order:
• John Adams
• Susan B. Anthony
• Clara Barton
• Daniel Boone
• Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
• Henry Clay
• Davy Crockett
• Frederick Douglass
• Amelia Earhart
• Benjamin Franklin
• Billy Graham
• Alexander Hamilton
• Thomas Jefferson
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Abraham Lincoln
• Douglas MacArthur
• Dolley Madison
• James Madison
• Christa McAuliffe
• Audie Murphy
• George S. Patton, Jr
.• Ronald Reagan
• Jackie Robinson
• Betsy Ross
• Antonin Scalia
• Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Harriet Tubman
• Booker T. Washington
• George Washington
• Orville and Wilbur Wright
https://slate.com/news-and-pol...
Quite some African-Americans and White abolitionists on that list Gary.
Quick, provide political cover for Trump, Ghostwriter!
Why is it political cover? Think in essence it could be a great idea, even if it came from Trump, he probably read x-jla's Monument & Memorial Removal thread before it got removed ;-)
He's interested in protecting Confederate and problematic statues, presented a rhetorically laughable slippery slope defense, and this provides him talking points about supposedly protecting "history" without making a single difference, since people have few issues with most of the statues on that list. But you knew this already and now get to play dumb, which is exactly what this list enables. Congratulations, you're dancing to Trump's tune nicely.
The more issues people have with certain statues, the more reason to preserve them and use that as an opportunity to educate people I would say. As Auschwitz is now used as a reminder against antisemitism and the Holocaust, so can statues of certain slave owners and anti-abolitionists be framed as such against slavery and racism. But you knew that already...
Good old lackologic back at it again.
That you don't want people to be confronted with the messy racist past of their country is quite clear, my only question is why...
Confrontation of a country's messy racist past sounds like a great thing and it is an engagement that is long overdue in this country. Commissioning, erecting and protecting statues for traitors to the country is another thing all together. These confederate statues were built to further the "Lost Cause" argument of the south and they were also built as a reaction to civil rights movements. Per your Auschwitz argument, yes, certain aspects of our history should be preserved to remember the mistakes of the past. For example, a sculpture garden that collects all of these racist statues and clearly dictates that these are racist statues, sounds like a fine idea. Personally though, statues for individuals that committed treason have no home in the nation's capital, but maybe a boot is ok. (https://bit.ly/2OcEd7T)
"That you don't want people to be confronted with the messy racist past of their country is quite clear, my only question is why..."
Well that's just demonstrably false bullshit. I am not surprised.
Professor: OK class, hope you brought your statues because we have a test today on the Civil War.*
*I saw this somewhere, but I can't remember where, nor can I find it again ... paraphrased from the original
"For example, a sculpture garden that collects all of these racist statues and clearly dictates that these are racist statues, sounds like a fine idea. "
Well, that's what I'm saying all along...but people are like Ernie, putting bananas in their ear and act surprised they can't hear.
"Well that's just demonstrably false bullshit. I am not surprised."
Prove me wrong...
Burden of proof is on you. I will wait.
What a cop-out Petey...
Too hard for you?
Still copping out Pete...
I know you are, but it's your way.
FFS, will you two just go get a tape measure and get it over with already.
Sorry, EA. Can I borrow an electron microscope? I'm afraid I haven't much use for a tape measure outside of work...
Too bad you're still copping out Pete, was looking forward to you delivering for once...
Keep on playing that old saw and I will continue to not dance.
Whomever writes his ideas for him is excellent at mixing things together so that what should be a simple issue suddenly becomes a quagmire. It gives him political cover to be an asshole and can dog whistle as loudly as he likes.
Did you look at the list? I guess Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackie Robinson, and Frederick Douglass are all white nationalist dog whistles now.
You are intentionally missing my point, which makes my point for me. Thanks.
It takes a racist to hear a dog whistle.
I'm so glad we have another Trump apologist at Archinect.
I don't like Trump; but if all you hear are dog whistles maybe you're the racist one.
Answer my question. Are Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackie Robinson, and Frederick Douglass white nationalist dog whistles now?
Oh, hi jla-randomised. I'm not interesting in pointing out your deficiencies, so have fun by yourself.
Who is jla-randomised? I have never commented before on this website.
It sounds like you're the racist one here; not wanting statues of famous black individuals.
Sneaky has issues, but can be funny, don't mind him....but why oh why archinect do you post such things!
I have issues with ignorant people who think they're clever when they try to bait an argument using bad faith. I appreciate the passive aggression, though.
you're ignorant. is that better....aggressive I believe, not passive.
You seem to be having trouble making a coherent statement.
I'm beyond coherence, I make sense to me.
I, too, can take 3 things from a list of 50 to make nearly any point. Doesn't mean anyone is obligated to take it seriously.
a) this already exists and b) we outgrew statues like 70 years ago and c) there’s not a single builder here — no jobs, roebling, Wright, Eames, Edison. Etc. except Jefferson (who already has a memorial)
That said, I’m sure leftists would love it, if the memorial was an abstract representation of American oppression and hate
And rightist fascists would love it if it was just a massive, erect phallus humping the second amendment.
Sneaky your vision is as clear and powerful as Maya Lin’s!
As I noted on Twitter, this sound more like a wax museum than anything to do with sculpture.
I like this idea, 'cause instead of tearing stuff down, like if you got real mad and said - Fuck Mark Twain for Huckleberry Finn (this is a historical reference to an attempt to edit that book to which many scholars of all colors said - no - in case my reference wasn't obvious)....Dude, the wax melt game, a little like Doom
Thematically the proposal is incoherent. Esthetically it will probably be pleasant chaos. Everything, everyone, is ripped out of context, and it's hard to imagine a setting that will provide meaningful physical context.
The thing to note is that this is an executive order. I see no provisions for input from historians, congress, the public, anybody. There is nothing democratic about the proposal.
Masha Gessen calls it a theme park:
This is America as Trump sees it: a skeletal, heroic history, with a lot of shooting, a lot of flying, and very little government.
This is a territorial cordoning off of history, which is what the entire Trumpian project has been.
https://www.newyorker.com/news...
The list bears scrutiny. Many safe choices, a nod to the BLM reaction I'm sure. Safe because they have become ensconced in history and insulated, also because they are dead. You have to wonder what they might say today about the last years if they were still alive. And if Trump wouldn't call them radicals and scumbags. Then list the groups that have been ignored. Gessen once more:
Excluded from this history entirely are Native Americans; this is made explicit in Section 7, which defines the term “historically significant American” as an American citizen or someone who “lived prior to or during the American Revolution and were not American citizens, but who made substantive historical contributions to the discovery, development, or independence of the future United States.” The proposed park, in other words, is one of settler-colonialist history.
Two kick-butt generals—not Eisenhower—one who had to be reined in, the other who was recalled. Douglas MacArthur first came to national prominence in 1932 when he led the Army "fully equipped with machine guns, tanks, and teargas, brandishing sabres and drawn bayonets" to clear out the bonus marchers in Washington, WWI vets, unarmed and unthreatening. According to MacArthur, if Hoover had let them stay another week, "I believe that the institutions of our Government would have been very severely threatened." Why does that sound familiar? Quotes from Leuchtenburg's The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-32, good reading now.
Trump could cure all forms of childhood cancer and he would be villified by many on this site.
I'll withhold judgement until he's done it. In the meantime, I reserve the right to vilify him for the things he's actually done ... and not done for that matter.
Volunteer could say something intelligent on this site and he would be...wait, never mind.
https://www.cancerhealth.com/article/trump-claims-credit-cancer-decline
https://www.cancerhealth.com/article/trumps-2020-budget-plan-slashes-national-cancer-institute
these are called cemeteries. we already have them.
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