A statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike that was torn down and torched by protesters in 2020 was restored to its original location in downtown Washington over the weekend by the National Park Service.
The Park Service announced in August its plan to return the refurbished statue of Pike, a Confederate Army brigadier general, to a small federal park at Third and D streets NW in the shadow of D.C. police headquarters. The move “aligns with federal responsibilities under historic preservation law as well as recent executive orders to beautify the nation’s capital and reinstate preexisting statues,” an NPS spokesman said at the time.
This spring, President Donald Trump ordered the creation of the “D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force,” which included ordering the “restoration of Federal public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties that have been damaged or defaced, or inappropriately removed or changed, in recent years.”
On Monday afternoon, the towering memorial — nearly 30 feet tall including its base — was enclosed by chain-link security fencing. Inside the enclosure sat two unattended construction vehicles. NPS signs on the fencing read: “Area Closed. Historic Preservation Work in Progress.” National Park Police officers kept watch over the scene from a nearby vehicle.
The statue of Pike, the only Confederate leader memorialized with an outdoor statue in Washington, was erected in 1901 by Washington Freemasons who wanted to honor him for his influential role in the society. Union veterans opposed the statue until they were reassured that it would depict Pike in civilian clothes, not in his Confederate uniform.
Pike’s critics contend that he was also instrumental in the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. Masons insist that evidence doesn’t support that, but he was known to oppose racially integrating Masonic lodges.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said the reinstallation of the statue was “morally objectionable” and called on Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to donate it to a museum.