Political leaders and citizens have offered up some 700 civil rights, sports, literary, and elected figures to fill a proposed National Garden of American Heroes meant to highlight historical giants and counter the “cancel culture” of tearing down statues.
In a report to President Trump today, a task force guided by the Interior Department will include the recommendations for the heroes and potential sites for the garden called for in a July 3 presidential executive order.
“There’s a lot of enthusiasm from the states about this,” said an Interior Department official.
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s task force report to the White House will include a list of 364 names proposed by governors and local elected officials and another list of 347 heroes suggested by the public.
The report will also include the wishes from dozens of localities and states to get the garden, set to be opened in 2026.
In his executive order, Trump named 31 American heroes who will be the core of those featured in a statue garden. They include presidents and key figures, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, Daniel Boone, and Jackie Robinson.
Others suggested through the Interior’s outreach program that it include the late Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Civil War black Buffalo Soldiers, singer Johnny Cash, the late Georgia Rep. John Lewis, Supreme Court Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall, author Mark Twain, the Little Rock Nine, and even Trump.
In a critical review of the program as the 60-day deadline to suggest heroes neared this past weekend, the Associated Press said the offerings from state leaders and citizens added to the “white worthies” named in the executive order that included 12 minorities, with only five black honorees.
The Interior Department fired back on Twitter, calling the report “disgusting racial politics.” The phrase has since disappeared from the story.
Disgusting racial politics on full display by @AP’s @EllenKnickmeyer with shocking reporting, referring to Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Earhart and George Washington as “white worthies” for the Garden of American Heroes. https://t.co/DWZVDGiEcG
— Interior Press Secretary (@DOIPressSec) August 31, 2020
Some of the responses to the Interior Department’s outreach expressed appreciation for Trump’s focus on preserving history and stopping the destruction and elimination of historical statues.
“Thank you for your letter and the president’s willingness to fight back with history and important individuals that have shaped this country into the blessings it is,” wrote Steve W. Smith, the commission chairman for Custer County, Idaho. “Donald Trump was put into this office for such a time as this.”
“It is disgraceful and despicable how radical progressives and the ‘cancel culture’ they promote are ignorantly trying to eliminate and rewrite history by attempting to destroy historical monuments that revere American heroes. We need to honor and respect our great history, not destroy it. We must fight back to preserve the story of our great country,” added Stefan Mychajliw Jr., the comptroller for Erie County, New York.
Some localities gave a simple thumbs-up to hosting the garden, and others, such as Appomattox County, Virginia, home to the courthouse where the Confederacy surrendered to the Union, thus ending the Civil War, offered maps and statistics to make its case.
Trump’s executive order followed a recent push to tear down statues of Confederate officials and those of any figure linked to slavery. Protesters went further, even attacking statues of anti-slavery figures.
Trump’s order said, “These statues are not ours alone, to be discarded at the whim of those inflamed by fashionable political passions; they belong to generations that have come before us and to generations yet unborn. My administration will not abide an assault on our collective national memory. In the face of such acts of destruction, it is our responsibility as Americans to stand strong against this violence, and to peacefully transmit our great national story to future generations through newly commissioned monuments to American heroes.”
