The Statue Wars Are Back – This Time to Restore Them

The statue-topplers of 2020 are meeting resistance. Six years after the George Floyd protests, a movement is taking shape in the United States that is no longer content to watch statues disappear from public space. Grassroots groups, heritage associations and conservative campaigners are suing, organizing and demanding the return of what was cleared away under the pressure of left-wing fury.

At the center is Christopher Columbus. Few figures show more clearly how far the cultural iconoclasm went. In Columbus, Ohio, an entire city bears the explorer’s name. Yet in 2020, it removed a roughly 20-foot, three-ton statue of its namesake from City Hall. Democratic Mayor Andrew Ginther argued at the time that the monument represented “patriarchy, oppression and divisiveness”.

Since then, the statue has been in storage, fenced off, monitored and wrapped in yellow caution tape. A gift from the Italian sister city of Genoa in 1955, it was removed from the cityscape like an embarrassing relic. Italian-American groups are now demanding its return. They have filed a federal lawsuit, arguing that the removal was unlawful.

The dispute is more than a local political spectacle. Removing Columbus from Columbus was an act of demonstrative self-denial from the start. It was not about historical context, but erasure. That is exactly what the resistance is now directed against. The silent majority, the lawsuit’s organizer says, is making itself heard.

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Trump Puts Columbus Back Up

The countermovement now has support from Washington. In March, the Trump administration installed a Columbus statue near the White House. It is a replica of a monument that protesters threw into Baltimore’s harbor in 2020. The statue was donated by an Italian-American organization.

The message is clear: what the mob sank will be raised again. Trump honored Columbus as an American hero and a visionary man. Ahead of the 250th anniversary of the United States, monuments are becoming a national symbolic battleground. America is deciding whether it will celebrate its history or continue to be driven by those who read it only as an indictment.

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Other cases also show that the wind is shifting. In Washington, a statue of Caesar Rodney, a signer of the Declaration of Independence from Delaware, was installed at Freedom Plaza after having been removed in 2020. In Texas, a statue of the Texas Rangers returned to public view at Globe Life Field. In Charleston, South Carolina, a monument to Robert E. Lee reappeared on private property.

The cases differ, but they belong to the same development. The statue-topplings of 2020 were not a closed chapter. They were the high point of a campaign that sought to cleanse public space according to the standards of a radicalized cultural moment. Now the reversal is beginning.

This is not about turning historical figures into saints. It is about ensuring that a nation does not hand over its history to the loudest tribunal of the moment. Those who remove monuments remove more than bronze and stone. They alter a country’s memory. They decide what future generations may still see, honor and question.

People take photos of the Christopher Columbus statue in Richmond’s Byrd Park after it was torn down. Photo: The Washington Post/Contributor

That is precisely why the iconoclasm was so destructive. It did not want to add, but to erase. It did not want to explain, but to make things disappear. It did not want to debate, but to create faits accomplis. Many cities went along because they feared protests or believed themselves to be on the right side morally. Today, those decisions look increasingly brittle.

America Takes Back Its History

Columbus is the strongest case. For decades, the city of Columbus had kept its namesake visibly anchored in public life. Columbus Day was celebrated, a replica of the Santa Maria lay on the Scioto River, and parks and institutions bore his name. Then the retreat began: holidays were renamed, symbols removed and statues dismantled.

The city later tried to manage the conflict under the title “Reimagining Columbus”. There were talks, concepts and announcements. In the end, there was no return of the statue, only stalemate. For its supporters, that was the point at which frustration became resistance.

The Christopher Columbus statue torn down at Denver’s Civic Center in June 2020. Photo: Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images

For Italian Americans in particular, Columbus is not just another figure from the history books. He is part of their public recognition in the United States. His removal therefore struck not only at a historical person, but also at a community defending its place in the American story.

That is what makes the current dispute so significant. It is not about nostalgia. It is about whether Western societies still have the strength to defend their own symbols. In 2020, the answer in many places appeared to be no. Activists pointed at a statue, politicians gave way and cranes moved in. The counterargument came too late or not at all.

Now it is coming. In court, in city councils, through grassroots campaigns and with support from the White House. The message is no longer: perhaps one day a new location should be discussed. It is: put them back up.

That is the decisive difference.

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The new movement is not asking for educational plaques, historical apologies or a place on the margins. It is demanding the return of monuments to public space. Visible, upright and without shame.

A cultural counteroffensive is beginning in America that reaches far beyond individual statues. The West cannot save its past by hiding it. It can only defend it by showing it, with its fractures, its struggles, its heroes and its burdens.