New York City officials have unanimously agreed on a new home for a statue of Thomas Jefferson that they voted in favor of removing from ...
New York City officials have unanimously agreed on a new home for a statue of Thomas Jefferson that they voted in favor of removing from City Hall after over 100 years because some workers said that the slave-owning former president makes them feel 'uncomfortable.'
The Public Design Commission voted to remove the statue before the end of the year during a lengthy hearing late last month, although they could not agree on a new location at the time. This Monday, the commission approved plans to relocate it to the New York Historical Society.
The statue will be placed in its lobby gallery for six months before being relocated to the museum's reading room for the duration of the 10-year loan agreement, both areas of which are free for public viewing, according to the New York Times.
Louise Mirrer, the historical society's president and chief executive, told the news outlet that the statue will be displayed starting in April and it will coincide with an exhibition looking at the 'principal contradiction of our founding ideals.'
New York City officials have unanimously agreed to relocate the century-old statue of Thomas Jefferson from City Hall to the New York Historical Society
The statue will be placed in its lobby gallery for six months before being relocated to the museum's reading room for a 10-year loan
The statue has resided in City Hall since 1834 and was given as a gift by naval officer Uriah Phillips Levy
'From the start, we have seen the opportunity to display the statue as consistent with the ways in which we look at history at our institution,' she said. 'Jefferson just has to be one of those figures that really draws attention to the distance between our founding ideals and the reality of our nation.'
While it will be displayed starting in April, officials planned to oust the statue at the end of last month. Now, the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus and Progressive Caucus are demanding that it be removed before the Council holds its next meeting in the chamber on Nov. 23.
The black, Latino and Asian caucus has objected to the presidential statue for years because Jefferson was a slave owner.
But the request for its removal came from the Commission on Racial Justice and Reconciliation, led by outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio's wife Charlene McCray, after black staff complained about the statue that honors a slave owner.
Before the commission made its decision, Democratic mayoral candidate Eric Adams said that he hoped the commission would consider 'uplifting underrepresented faces and communities' by removing the statue, and that he supported its removal.
A replica of the statue will continue to be featured in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington DC
Republican politicians quickly railed against the latest move to rewrite history by booting the statue of the former president who wrote the Declaration of Independence.
'The de Blasio administration will continue the progressive war on history as he, himself, fades away into a portrait on a City Hall wall,' Councilman Joe Borelli told the New York Post.
'I hope he is at least gone a couple hundred years before someone cancels him.'
The statue had resided in the City Hall's Council chambers since 1834 after it was gifted by Uriah Phillips Levy, a naval officer and an admirer of Jefferson's.
'The city would still own the plaster model, and the historical society would include it in educational exhibits and provide valuable historical context,' the spokesman said.
Councilman I. Daneek Miller, a Democrat, defended exiling the statue and told Fox News, 'There's so much about Thomas Jefferson and his own personal writings, memoirs about how he treated his slaves, his family members and things of that nature and how he perceived African Americans and slaves — that they lacked intelligence, that they were not to assimilate into society. For us to really highlight such an individual is really not who we are as a council.'
The statue of the Founding Father outside of Jefferson High School in Portland on June 14 2020 after it was removed by protesters
McCray, the head of the Commission on Racial Justice and Reconciliation, had made the decision to remove the statue following a meeting in June 2020.
The RRC was organized to 'promote social learning, collective introspection, and policy action' as well as create a historical record of racial discrimination, with an emphasis on housing, criminal justice, environmental racism and public health' in the wake of protests over George Floyd's death.
De Blasio had previously written a letter to City Hall following his wife's suggestion.
'The statue of Thomas Jefferson in the City Council Chambers is inappropriate and serves as a constant reminder of the injustices that have plagued communities of color since the inception of our country,' he wrote.
'Jefferson is America's most noted slave holder... and a scholar who maintained that Blacks were inferior to whites.'
The letter dated June 18, 2020 was signed by de Blasio and fellow Council members.
Other statues of Jefferson and fellow historical figures who had an alleged racist pasts were publicly seen being vandalized and taken down during the BLM movement.
A statue of the Founding Father was toppled on June 14, 2020 at Portland High School in Oregon by a group of protesters.
Footage of the vandalism revealed protesters tying a rope around the neck of the statue to bring it down as well as using a hammer to loosen the base of the structure.
The statue was also covered in graffiti reading 'Black Lives Matter' and 'George Floyd 8:46' in reference to the amount of time former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin had knelt on his neck for.
A replica of the statue in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington D.C. will continue to be on display.
Jefferson was considered the largest slaveholder during his day with over 600 slaves at this Virginia home.
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