Trump Installs Christopher Columbus Statue at White House
A statue of Christopher Columbus was installed early Sunday on the White House grounds, as part of President Trump’s effort to restore the explorer’s public standing after monuments to him were removed across the country in 2020. The sculpture was placed on the north side of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building facing Pennsylvania Avenue, according to the New York Times. It is a replica of a statue that protesters in Baltimore tore down and dumped into the Inner Harbor during the racial justice protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Related Articles Fragments of the original were later recovered from the water by a team organized by the Maryland artist Tilghman Hemsley. His son, Will Hemsley, used scans of the salvaged pieces to produce the replica, a project that received $30,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities during Trump’s first term. For years, the finished statue sat in the artist’s studio, with no clear destination. That changed as the administration began planning events around the upcoming 250th anniversary of American independence. The statue was transferred …
