If you’re going to remove statues then put them in museums. The Teddy Roosevelt statue is outside of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, but still.
The museum has decided to remove the statue.
The statue is of Roosevelt on a horse with a Native American and black man on both sides.
From The New York Times:
“Over the last few weeks, our museum community has been profoundly moved by the ever-widening movement for racial justice that has emerged after the killing of George Floyd,” the museum’s president, Ellen V. Futter, said in an interview. “We have watched as the attention of the world and the country has increasingly turned to statues as powerful and hurtful symbols of systemic racism.Ms. Futter made clear that the museum’s decision was based on the statue itself — namely its “hierarchical composition”—- and not on Roosevelt himself, whom the museum continues to honor as “a pioneering conservationist.”“Simply put,” she added, “the time has come to move it.”—“It’s very important to note that our request is based on the statue, that is the hierarchical composition that’s depicted in it,” Ms. Futter said. “It is not about Theodore Roosevelt who served as Governor of New York before becoming the 26th president of the United States and was a pioneering conservationist.”
The museum did not say when the statue will come down, where it will go, and if anything will replace it.
Roosevelt’s great-grandson approved of the museum’s decision:
“The world does not need statues, relics of another age, that reflect neither the values of the person they intend to honor nor the values of equality and justice,” said Theodore Roosevelt IV, 77, a great-grandson of the 26th president and a museum trustee. “The composition of the Equestrian Statue does not reflect Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy. It is time to move the statue and move forward.”
[Featured image via YouTube]
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