The American Museum of Natural History is to remove a prominent statue of former US president Theodore Roosevelt from its entrance after objections that it symbolizes colonial expansion and racial discrimination, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Sunday.
The bronze statue, which has stood at the museum’s Central Park West entrance since 1940, depicts Roosevelt on horseback with a Native American man and an African American man standing next to the horse.
“The American Museum of Natural History has asked to remove the Theodore Roosevelt statue because it explicitly depicts black and indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior,” De Blasio said in a written statement. “The city supports the museum’s request. It is the right decision and the right time to remove this problematic statue.”
Photo: AP
US President Donald Trump objected to the statue’s removal.
“Ridiculous, don’t do it!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Museum’s president Ellen Futter told the New York Times that the museum’s “community has been profoundly moved by the ever-widening movement for racial justice that has emerged after the killing of George Floyd.”
Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25.
“We have watched as the attention of the world and the country has increasingly turned to statues as powerful and hurtful symbols of systemic racism,” Futter said.
Officials said it has not been determined when the statue would be removed or where it would go.
“The composition of the Equestrian Statue does not reflect Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy,” Theodore Roosevelt IV, a great-grandson of the president, said in a statement to the New York Times. “It is time to move the statue and move forward.”
Futter said that the museum objects to the statue, but not to Roosevelt, a pioneering conservationist whose father was a founding member of the institution and who served as New York’s governor before becoming the 26th president of the US.
The museum is naming its Hall of Biodiversity for Roosevelt “in recognition of his conservation legacy,” she said.
China’s military yesterday showed off its machine-gun equipped robot battle “dogs” at the start of its biggest ever drills with Cambodian forces. More than 2,000 troops, including 760 Chinese military personnel, are taking part in the drills at a remote training center in central Kampong Chhnang Province and at sea off Preah Sihanouk Province. The 15-day exercise, dubbed Golden Dragon, also involves 14 warships — three from China — two helicopters and 69 armored vehicles and tanks, and includes live-fire, anti-terrorism and humanitarian rescue drills. The hardware on show included the so-called “robodogs” — remote-controlled four-legged robots with automatic rifles mounted on their
A Philippine boat convoy bearing supplies for Filipino fishers yesterday said that it was headed back to port, ditching plans to sail to a reef off the Southeast Asian country after one of their boats was “constantly shadowed” by a Chinese vessel. The Atin Ito (“This Is Ours”) coalition convoy on Wednesday set sail to distribute fuel and food to fishers and assert Philippine rights in the disputed South China Sea. “They will now proceed to the Subic fish port to mark the end of their successful mission,” the group said in a statement. A Philippine Coast Guard vessel escorting the convoy was
SHAKE-UP: Lam, who would be the third president in less than two years, emerged as one of the country’s most important officials after leading an anti-corruption effort Vietnam has nominated the enforcer of the Communist Party’s anti-corruption drive as the next president and proposed a new head of the National Assembly, in appointments that could ease months of political turmoil and allow policymakers to refocus on a struggling economy. Unprecedentedly for a one-party nation once known for its stable politics, two state presidents and a National Assembly speaker have stepped down in less than 18 months, all for unspecified “wrongdoing” amid a major anti-graft campaign which is unnerving foreign investors because of its chilling effect on bureaucracy. After approval from the National Assembly, which could come this week, Vietnamese
MOSTLY SYMBOLIC: The ruling party has a large enough majority to override the veto of the legislation, which the president said contradicts the constitution Georgia’s president on Saturday vetoed a so-called “Russian law” targeting media that has sparked weeks of mass protests. The legislation would require media and non-governmental organizations to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad. Critics of the bill say it closely resembles legislation used by the Kremlin to silence opponents, and that it would obstruct Georgia’s bid to join the EU. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who is increasingly at odds with the ruling Georgian Dream party, said that the legislation contradicts the country’s constitution and “all European standards,” adding