The National Park Service said Monday it will refurbish and reinstall a statue of Albert Pike, a Confederate general during the Civil War, that was torn from its plinth in northwest Washington during the 2020 protests over the police-led murder of George Floyd.
In response, the nonvoting Democratic representative for the District of Columbia, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, said she would reintroduce a bill to permanently remove the statue from the city.
Pike’s statue has been kept in secure NPS storage since 2020, when it was toppled and set aflame amid the Black Lives Matter protests.
The park service said Monday its decision to reinstate the statue complies with President Donald Trump’s March order to reinstate removed historical statues on public lands. The executive mandate also targeted “revisionist” history and crime in the nation’s capital.
