‘It Is the Right Decision and the Right Time’: The American Museum of Natural History Will Remove Its Theodore Roosevelt Statue

A monument to Theodore Roosevelt that has stood outside New
York’s American Museum of Natural History since 1940 will be
removed, the museum announced Sunday, after weeks of protests
targeting Confederate monuments and other symbols of America’s
racist history.

The bronze statue, situated on the steps of the museum, depicts
the former New York state governor and US president on
horseback with a Native American man in full headdress on one side
and a bare-chested African man on the other. The work, by artist
James Earle Fraser, was commissioned in 1925 as part of a larger
initiative to honor Roosevelt, who was a naturalist and author of
natural history works.

The statue sits on city-owned property and, in a press release, New York City Mayor Bill de
Blasio said, “The city supports the museum’s request. It is the
right decision and the right time to remove this problematic
statue.”

That sentiment was echoed by Theodore Roosevelt IV, a
great-grandson of the former president and a museum trustee, who
said: “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. The composition of the
Equestrian Statue does not reflect Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy. It
is time to move the statue and move forward.”

The decision to actually remove the monument was a long time coming. In 2017, following the
deadly white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, de
Blasio convened the Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and
Markers to address the future of divisive statues of
Christopher Columbus, J. Marion Sims, and Roosevelt. In the end,
the commission opted not to remove any of the works permanently. De
Blasio said at the time, “Our approach will focus on adding detail
and nuance to—instead of removing entirely—the representations of
these histories.”

In the wake of those instructions, the American Museum of
Natural History mounted an exhibition called “Addressing the
Statue” that included studies of the preparatory sketches, and a
series of responses from academics about Roosevelt’s legacy.
Notably, many of the historians who contributed thoughts
acknowledged that while Roosevelt was considered a conservationist,
the land he was so intent on caring for had been stolen from Native
American peoples. In its press release, the museum noted the
shortcomings of the exhibition: “we are proud of that work…but in
the current moment, it is abundantly clear that this approach is
not sufficient.”

In recent years, many groups have actively opposed the statue,
staging protests outside the museum. Since 2016, Decolonize This
Place has led a march on Indigenous People’s Day culminating at the
Roosevelt statue and shrouding it in a tarp. In October 2017, a
group called the Monument Removal Brigade splashed red paint on its
base, writing in a statement “Now the statue is bleeding. We
did not make it bleed. It is bloody at its very foundation.” Though
the incident was a self-described “act of applied art criticism,”
it was decried by then city cultural affairs commissioner Tom Finkelpearl as vandalism.

The future of the statue is unclear as yet, though the museum
announced that its Hall of Biodiversity will be named for Roosevelt
as a conciliatory measure. Over the past weeks, activists around
the US have continued to rally for the removal of controversial
statues, successfully toppling Confederate monuments in
Raleigh and Los Angeles. NFL teams are also reckoning with
statues honoring former team owners with racist pasts that are
stationed outside stadiums in Minneapolis and
Washington, DC.

The post ‘It Is the Right Decision and the Right Time’: The
American Museum of Natural History Will Remove Its Theodore
Roosevelt Statue appeared first on artnet News.