Toppled Confederate Statue Will Rise Again In Washington

A bronze statue of a Confederate general that was torn off its pedestal in Washington’s Judiciary Square by demonstrators during the civil justice protests in 2020 will be restored and reinstalled, the National Park Service said Monday.

Albert Pike was the only Confederate leader memorialized with an outdoor statue in Washington until it was toppled in the protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd, which sparked a nationwide reckoning with racism and calls for the removal of monuments to the Confederacy.

But the National Park Service says it’s obligated to restore the Pike statue by executive orders issued by President Donald Trump, including one calling for “restoring truth and sanity to American history” as under well federal preservation law.

“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 park service said in a statement announcing its plan.

Pike led a regiment of Native Americans in Arkansas who sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War and were accused of scalping Union troops in an 1862 battle. He later received a pardon from President Andrew Johnson for his wartime actions and went on to become a prominent member of the Freemasons in Washington.

Protesters, using ropes and chains, pulled down the statue in June 2020 and set it on fire.

Trump, then in his first term, accused police of “not doing their job as they watch a statue be ripped down & burn.”

The park service said the statue is being repaired at its Historic Preservation Training Center in Frederick, Maryland.

In the hours after NPS announced it was returning the statue to its place in the district, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s nonvoting House delegate, announced plans to reintroduce her bill to remove the statue and donate it to a museum.

"I've long believed Confederate statues should be placed in museums as historical artifacts, not remain in parks and locations that imply honor," Norton said in a press release. "The decision to honor Albert Pike by reinstalling the Pike statue is as odd and indefensible as it is morally objectionable. Pike served dishonorably.”