George Floyd. Sacagawea. The guy who invented air-conditioning. Americans’ suggestions of suitable statues for President Donald Trump’s planned National Garden of American Heroes are in, and they look considerably different from the predominantly White worthies that the administration has locked in for many of the pedestals. The outside nominations are more activist, browner and far more indigenous. The administration is leaving open the possibility of a statue of Trump himself in the Trump-created statue park after receiving “multiple nominations” of the president.
Trump ordered up the statue park during a Fourth of July speech at Mount Rushmore, and set up a task force on a 60-day deadline to get the idea going. He also mused in a tweet that it would be a “good idea” to carve his own face into that memorial. The task force—with all of the publicly listed members White—says it sent out thousands of requests to state and local officials for suggestions, both for possible sites around the US and for heroes to...
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