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The President of the United States, Donald Trump, ordered the creation of a “National Garden of American Heroes” to defend what he calls “our great national history” against those who destroy the statues.
His executive order gives a new task force 60 days to submit plans, including a location, for the garden.
He insists that the new statues must be realistic, “not abstract or modernist.”
Several American statues have been knocked down since the police murder of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, in May.
Monuments related to the slave-owning Confederation during the Civil War in the United States have been especially targeted in national protests sparked by Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after a white police officer knelt on his neck during almost nine minutes.
President Trump has championed Confederate symbols as part of the American heritage.
In a speech to mark Independence Day on Mount Rushmore, he condemned anti-racism protesters who downed statues.
He said the United States’ national heritage was being threatened, an emotional call for patriotism.
The garden, to be in a place of natural beauty near a city, will open before July 4, 2026, according to Trump’s executive order. State authorities and civic organizations are invited to donate statues for it.
The choice of President Trump’s historic figures to commemorate in the garden is likely to be controversial.
The list of “historically significant” Americans predictably includes the Founding Fathers such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, but also border leader Davy Crockett, Christian evangelical preacher Billy Graham, Ronald Reagan, and World War II heroes Douglas MacArthur and George Patton.
There will also be statues of African American civil rights activists Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King Jr.
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Americans Celebrate French Marquis de Lafayette as National Hero
Controversially, Trump includes non-Americans who “made substantial historical contributions to the discovery, development, or independence of the future United States.”
So the garden can have statues of Christopher Columbus, Junípero Serra and the Marquis of Lafayette.
Columbus and the Spanish Catholic missionary Serra are far from heroic to Native Americans, because their “discoveries” led to the slavery and exploitation of indigenous peoples by white settlers.
America’s early economic development was also based on slavery, causing some of the traditional national heroes to doubt African Americans.
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The Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat and military commander, led American troops in key battles against the British in the American Revolution.
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What did President Trump say in his speech?
It was a very symbolic setting for the speech: Mount Rushmore, in South Dakota, features the carved faces of four American presidents, two of whom, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, owned slaves.
It is also located on land that was taken from the Lakota Sioux indigenous people by the United States government in the 19th century.
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President Trump promised to protect the monuments against what he called a “left-wing cultural revolution”
President Trump criticized the “culture of cancellation” of those who demolished monuments during the recent protests against racism.
He condemned those who attacked the statues as “angry mobs”.
Trump accused the protesters of “a ruthless campaign to erase our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children.” “We will not be silenced,” he said.
The president, who has been widely criticized for his handling of the United States coronavirus pandemic, made little reference to the disease that has now claimed nearly 130,000 American lives.
The United States recorded its largest single-day rise in coronavirus infections on Friday, totaling more than 2.5 million, the most in any country.
Masks and social distancing were not required at the Mount Rushmore event, despite warnings from health officials.
Native American groups criticized Trump’s visit for posing a health risk and celebrating United States independence in an area that is sacred to them.
Many Native Americans do not celebrate Independence Day because they associate it with the colonization of their tribal lands and the loss of their cultural liberties.
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