Ahead of the Fourth of July weekend, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that would create a new national park to display statues and monuments dedicated to “American Heroes,” including those that have been torn down by protesters in the past month.
The order lists specific criteria and examples of either names of potential persons to be honored or events from which historically significant persons may be honored, such as the “discovery of America” or the “abolition of slavery.” Neither the Confederacy nor the Civil War are mentioned in the order.
In the past month, statues of George Washington, Christopher Columbus, and even Abraham Lincoln have been destroyed, as well as monuments dedicated to abolitionists and Africa-American soldiers. It is these statues and monuments Trump said he wanted to restore and preserve.
“To destroy a monument is to desecrate our common inheritance. In recent weeks, in the midst of protests across America, many monuments have been vandalized or destroyed. Some local governments have responded by taking their monuments down. Among others, monuments to Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Francis Scott Key, Ulysses S. Grant, leaders of the abolitionist movement, the first all-volunteer African-American regiment of the Union Army in the Civil War, and American soldiers killed in the First and Second World Wars have been vandalized, destroyed, or removed,” Trump’s order stated. – READ MORE
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