Trump Reinstalls Monument to Founding Father, Slave Owner Removed in 2020
The Trump administration installed 13 statues on Freedom Plaza in downtown Washington, D.C., including an equestrian monument to Revolutionary War figure and slave owner Caesar Rodney that had been removed from view in Wilmington, Delaware in June 2020 amid the Black Lives Matter movement. The monument commemorates Rodney’s 1776 ride to Philadelphia to cast a decisive vote for independence; Rodney died in 1784 at the Byfield plantation, where he owned 200 enslaved people. The Department of the Interior said 12 accompanying soldier figures represent the collective sacrifice of those who served in the Revolutionary War and framed the installation as part of preparations for America’s 250th anniversary. The reinstallation aligns with Trump’s broader effort to influence historical presentation, including an order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” aimed at the Smithsonian Institution, and follows a separate plan to install a replica Christopher Columbus statue after a Baltimore monument was torn down in 2020 and later refashioned from recovered fragments.
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This story was covered in Museums Under Fire, Markets Turn to Betting