Toppled Monuments Are Reappearing Across the U.S. Under Trump
Contested monuments removed during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests are being reinstalled in the United States during President Donald Trump’s administration, including a Christopher Columbus statue placed on White House grounds in Washington, D.C. on March 22, 2026, near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The statue is a replica of a Columbus monument toppled in Baltimore nearly six years earlier after the murder of George Floyd; Tilghman Hemsley helped recover the original, and his son Will Helmsley scanned it to produce the replica. The replica’s production was supported in part by a $30,000 National Endowment for the Humanities contribution, and the work is on loan to the White House from Italian American Organizations United, according to the article published March 25, 2026.
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This story was covered in Venice Defiance, Monuments Return, A.I. Retreat