A statue of a Confederate general that was pulled down and set on fire during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests has been reinstated in Washington, D.C.
The bronze memorial to Gen. Albert Pike was reinstalled in the nation’s capital over the weekend, months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to restore what he called “truth and sanity” to American history.
In August, the National Park Service announced that the statue of the Confederate general would return to Judiciary Square more than five years after demonstrators tore it down.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, the NPS said the restoration “aligns with federal responsibilities under historic-preservation law and recent executive orders to beautify the nation’s capital and restore pre-existing statues.”
Trump has taken multiple steps to erase negative aspects of U.S. history during his second term, including restoring the names of Confederate generals that had been stripped from military bases and clashing with the Smithsonian over complaints that its museums are too focused on “how bad slavery was” in America.
The Pentagon also restored a portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee at the West Point library that features enslaved Black man leading a horse.
The statue of Pike, the only outdoor memorial of a Confederate leader in D.C., was erected in 1901 but does not depict him in military attire. The plaque at the base of the statue makes no mention of his time in the Confederacy, instead describing him as an “author, poet, scholar, soldier, jurist, orator, philanthropist, and philosopher.”
Campaigners have fought for decades to have the contentious statue removed, highlighting Pike’s alleged role in helping to found the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan group after the Civil War. The statue was toppled by Black Lives Matter protesters with ropes in June 2020 before being set on fire.
Trump demanded in a social media post at the time that those responsible be “immediately arrested,” calling them a “disgrace to our country.”
Jason Charter, who was arrested for allegedly setting fire to the statue, reacted to the news of its return by reposting an image of it in flames on X Monday with the caption: “He looks better like this.”
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the 88-year-old nonvoting representative for D.C. in the House, called the statue’s return “morally objectionable” and an affront to the city’s minority residents.
“Confederate statues should be placed in museums as historical artifacts, not remain in parks or other locations that imply honor,” Holmes said in a statement. “Pike represents the worst of the Confederacy and has no claim to be memorialized in the nation’s capital.”
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