George Washington is no longer welcome inside Chicago City Hall.
Plans to remove the statue of former President George Washington from the hallway outside the mayor’s office on the fifth floor of City Hall in a move that, a top aide said Tuesday, has nothing to do with the first president’s role as a slave owner.
Ronnie Reese, Johnson’s communications director, told the Chicago Sun Times the statue “is being removed from the hallway outside the mayor’s office as we make updates to some areas around City Hall.”
Reese said the removal is unrelated to Washington’s owning slaves.
“If people want to think that, I can’t stop them. But that’s not our intent,” Reese said. “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.”
As I wrote in my new book, “Twilight’s Last Gleaming: Can America Be Saved,” there is a coordinated effort to erase American history in the name of critical race theory. Click here to read my book.
Alderman Nick Sposato said he was outraged by the planned removal of the statue.
“When does this stop — the redoing everything and eliminating everything? I just don’t get it,” Sposato told the newspaper.
“He’s George Washington. He risked everything. We are who we are because of this man. He could have just stood down and not get involved with the [Revolutionary] war and came here and lived a good life. But he fought for who we are. He should be honored all over the place. Next, are we going to change the name of the streets named for presidents,” he asked.
In 2017 President Trump warned Americans that the culture jihadists would one day target statues honoring our Founding Fathers.
“Is it George Washington next week and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You have to ask yourself where does it stop?” Trump said.
He continued, “George Washington was a slave owner. So will George Washington lose his status? Are we gonna take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? Do you like him, because he was a major slave owner. Are we gonna take down his statue? So it’s fine. You’re changing history, you’re changing culture and I’m not talking about the neo-nationalists or the neo-Nazis because they should be condemned totally. But you had people in that group other than neo-Nazis, other than white nationalists, ok? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”