Chicago’s leftist Mayor Brandon Johnson expressed a desire on Tuesday to eliminate the statue of President George Washington that sits in the hallway outside his City Hall office. But now that plan seems to be on hold.
Early on Tuesday, word reached the press Johnson intended to remove the statue which was dedicated back in 1984 and sits outside his fifth floor offices.
BREAKING: Mayor Johnson is REMOVING George Washington from the hallways of Chicago’s City Hall pic.twitter.com/aBNF5lltXL
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 16, 2024
The removal plan was initially said to be merely part of Johnson’s attempt to make “updates to some areas in and around City Hall,” according to Mayoral spokesman Ronnie Reese, the Chicago Tribune reported.
There was no indication the statue was to be removed because of the connection George Washington had to slavery. However, former mayor Lori Lightfoot had included George Washington in her plans to tear down “problematic” statuary throughout the Windy City.
Lightfoot had raised a commission she called the Chicago Monuments Project that recommended that George Washington be included on the list of 41 historical figures whose monuments should be torn down because they were no longer woke enough for city officials.
For instance, the commission recommended in 2022 that the elimination of the Arrigo Park statue to Christopher Columbus should be made permanent. Lightfoot temporarily removed the Columbus statue in 2020 claiming that it was divisive. At the time, she said it was only temporary, but she never did return it to its rightful place. By 2022, the commission approved of the removal and recommended that it never be returned.
A student looks at a statue of George Washington outside the mayor’s office in Chicago City Hall in 2012. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
At least one alderman claimed on Tuesday that Johnson’s plans to remove the Washington statue at City Hall was part of the former mayor’s program.
Democrat 38th Ward Ald. Nicholas Sposato told the Tribune the removal of the statue was a “snafu” from the “previous administration.”
Sposato told the paper that he immediately contacted the mayor’s office after hearing about the removal of the statue and was told the plan was not going forward at this time.
“He said they never wanted to do it. It was some sort of ‘snafu’ from the previous administration,” Sposato said of his conversation. “I was just happy it was not coming down, so I didn’t start asking questions or criticizing or anything”
“It’s not coming down. It’s staying right where it is,” Sposato told the Sun-Times, adding, “Maybe they were gonna do it, read your story and figured they had better not. Maybe it was my own tough comments that convinced them to change their mind. Either way, the Washington statue stays.”
Thus far, neither the mayor nor his office has made any official statement on the reported plans to remove the statue and the subsequent retreat.
Still, the only statement spokesman Reese gave on the topic did hint at a racial motivation.
“We’re just freshening up the space. Making it a bit more current. There’s a lot of Chicago icons who would be deserving of statues as well. We should be considering that also — Ida B. Wells, DuSable, Harold Washington,” he said on Tuesday morning.
Johnson has announced plans of his own to raise more statues. In June of 2023, just a little over a month after taking office, he announced he intended to use a $6.8 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to raise statues to black men who were tortured into false confessions by notorious Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge.
The grant was also supposed to be used to raise monuments to underrepresented “events, people and groups.” But to date, nothing has come of the announced effort.
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