An Ohio city has offered to take unwanted statues of political figures from other cities.
David Lynch, the city manager for Newton Falls, Ohio, declared Newton Falls a “Statuary Sanctuary City” in a proclamation Saturday, obtained by the local media.
The proclamation declares “general amnesty” for the statues of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant, Patrick Henry, Francis Scott Key, Theodore Roosevelt, and Christopher Columbus.
“The great leaders of our country and western civilization, although flawed in many respects, have made great achievements such as the founding of our nation, the end of slavery, the establishment and protection of our national parks, the establishment of antitrust laws to protect our citizens from overly aggressive monopolization of industry and the discovery of the New World itself, “the proclamation says.
The city is “volunteering to accept these statues of these great leaders and volunteering to accept these statues that have been removed in the United States and place them in a place of honor in our community.”
Lynch told Fox 8 that the city wants to “embrace great leaders.”
“Yes, they had warts, but they laid the foundation for what we have today,” he said.
Newton Falls’ proclamation comes as debates arise across the country about whether statues and monuments for Confederate leaders and other troubled historical figures should remain in place.
The movement to tear down the Confederate statues was revived after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died while in Minneapolis police custody. Protests erupted after his death, and some protesters took it upon themselves to vandalize or overthrow the monuments.
Some protesters also knocked down statues Grant, a Union general, and Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics for the National Anthem, in San Francisco and Columbus in Baltimore and other cities.
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