A statue of Confederate general and Freemason leader Albert Pike, which was destroyed during Black Lives Matter demonstrations in June 2020, is set to be restored and reinstalled by the National Park Service.
“The restoration aligns with federal responsibilities under historic preservation law as well as recent executive orders to beautify the nation’s capital and re-instate pre-existing statues,” the National Park Service said in a statement, pointing to President Trump’sexecutive order on Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautifuland theexecutive order on Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.
In a statement, Washington, D.C., congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton announced she would reintroduce a bill to remove the statue permanently.
“The decision to honor Albert Pike by reinstalling the Pike statue is as odd and indefensible as it is morally objectionable,” Norton stated. “He resigned in disgrace after committing a war crime and dishonoring even his own Confederate military service. Given Pike’s past, even those who support the preservation of Confederate statues would need to provide evidence for any recognition he receives.
There has long been controversy around the statue of Albert Pike. Although Pike is dressed in civilian clothes and the memorial itself makes no mention of his military service, it was the only statue of a Confederate commander in D.C. prior to its removal. The engraved words instead said, “AUTHOR, POET, SCHOLAR, SOLDIER, JURIST, ORATOR, PHILANTHROPIST and PHILOSOPHER.” In 1901, it was dedicated by the Freemasons to commemorate his leadership.
Originally from Boston, Pike eventually made Arkansas his home. He joined the Know-Nothing Party, which was anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant, but when the party refused to take a pro-slavery stand, he and other delegates left their convention. In 1861, he was promoted to Confederate general and served as a liaison between the Confederacy and indigenous groups. Although his involvement and function have been disputed, he has been named as a post-Civil War leader of the Ku Klux Klan in their histories.
In 2020, the D.C. Council tweeted that since 1992, members had been urging its removal.
Protesters used ropes to take down the statue on Juneteenth, 2020, and then burned it on fire.
“The D.C. Police are not doing their job as they watch a statue be ripped down & burn,” Trump responded on Twitter. These individuals ought to be taken into custody right away. “A shame to our nation!”
By October, the statue should be restored on its plinth in the Judiciary Square section of D.C., which is only a few blocks from the National Mall, according to the park service.
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