Operations to remove the statue of former US President Theodore Roosevelt began on Thursday near New York’s famous Central Park following a scandal raised by African Americans and Native Americans.
The bronze statue of “Teddy” Roosevelt, president from 1901 to 1909, announced in June 2020, is now carved into the imposing dais where he “received” visitors at the entrance to the Natural History Museum for 80 years.
When asked by a journalist for the news agency France-Presse (AFP), a source at the museum said the work would “take months” without specifying a date for final removal.
The statue of Roosevelt, distantly related to one of his successors, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, depicts the former president on horseback, looking at a black man and walking Native American – a derogatory depiction of the Natural History Museum that some have asked to leave New York.
The June 2020 removal announcement came shortly after the death of George Floyd, an African American who was killed by police in Minneapolis, causing great shock to the United States due to latent racism.
At the same time, several other historical figures were targeted, such as former presidents Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson. Last September, Virginia removed a giant statue of Confederate General Robert Lee, a symbol of the country’s slave past.
If this “revolution” in American history seems legitimate to anyone, politicians and historians are worried about a race with no end in sight, which, in their words, “looks like the destruction of American culture.”
After dismantling, the Roosevelt statue will be housed on a long-term lease at the future Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota.
This museum honoring the former US president, due to open in 2026, promises to re-contextualize what he calls a “problematic” goal after consultation with Native American and African American representatives.
Most recently, New York announced that the statue of Thomas Jefferson, the “Founding Father” of the United States, would be removed from the House of the Elect, as he owned hundreds of slaves on his Virginia plantations.
Along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt are among the four presidents whose faces are carved into the rock of South Dakota’s famous tourist Mount Rushmore.
