A statue of Christopher Columbus has been erected outside of an ornate federal office building on the White House grounds — the latest sign of the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape cultural and historical representations across the nation’s capital.
The installation of the statue — which is a replica of one toppled in Baltimore during racial justice protests in 2020 — occurred over the weekend outside of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It comes as the Trump administration pushes forward with its efforts to bring back statues that were removed in the wake of the protests.
President Donald Trump, in a letter published by the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, praised the group for its “incredible generosity” in bringing the statue to Washington after the original was “torn down by anti-American rioters.”
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told The New York Times in a statement Sunday, “In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero, and President Trump will ensure he’s honored as such for generations to come.”
Many statues of Columbus, an Italian often falsely credited as the first overseas explorer to discover America, were taken down at the height of the demonstrations over George Floyd’s murder in 2020. Columbus has long been a contentious figure in history for his treatment of Indigenous communities and for his role ushering in European colonization in the Americas.
The 13-foot statue recently installed on the White House campus is a copy of a work that was wrenched down from its pedestal and thrown into Baltimore’s harbor in 2020. While it stands across from the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery and near the White House building, it’s not accessible for close public viewing and is blocked off by rows of fences.
The new work contains pieces of the statue that were retrieved from the Baltimore Harbor, according to a release from the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, which worked with the White House to bring the statue to Washington in celebration of Italian American culture and the United States’ 250th anniversary.
“Columbus statues have long stood as symbols of pride and cultural identity for more than 18 million Americans of Italian descent,” the group’s president, Basil Russo, said in a news release. “For over a century, Columbus’s legacy helped Italian immigrants navigate prejudice and hardship, serving as a source of unity and belonging as they built new lives in this country.”
“Christopher Columbus was the original American hero and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the Earth,” Trump said in his letter, adding Columbus’ voyage in 1492 “carried thousands of years of wisdom, philosophy, reason, and culture across the Atlantic into the Americas.”
The installation builds on Trump’s push to bring back statues that were removed in the wake of the Floyd protests. Across the country, controversial statues — especially Confederate monuments — were removed after the mass demonstrations in 2020.
So far, the Trump administration has reinstalled a statue of Confederate officer Albert Pike in Washington, DC, and announced plans to return a Confederate memorial to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.