National Park Service to reinstall Confederate statue in Washington, DC, that was toppled during 2020 protests

The statue of Albert Pike, who served as a brigadier general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, was the only outdoor statue in the nation's capital honoring a Confederate figure, according to the National Park Service, though it was officially erected to “honor Albert Pike's influential role in the Masons.” As protests against racism swept the nation in the summer of 2020, following the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, protesters called for the removal of numerous statues and other memorials across the country honoring Confederate figures. Following the National Park Service's announcement, Washington, D.C., Democratic Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton's office announced that she would "reintroduce her bill to permanently remove the statue and authorize the Secretary of the Interior to donate it to a museum or a similar entity."

Author: Deena Zaru

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