The New York City Public Design Commission voted to remove a historic statue of one of America’s leading Founding Fathers from City Hall, according to The Hill.
On Monday, the commission unanimously voted to relocate the statue from the City Council chambers. The vote comes after State Assemblyman Charles Barron (D-N.Y.) and his wife, City Councilwoman Inez Barron, first began the movement to remove the statue. Assemblyman Barron claimed, without evidence, that Jefferson was a rapist, while Councilwoman Barron insisted that removal of his statue was “not being revisionist.”
Members of the New York City Council demanded the removal of the statue back in June, in a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-N.Y.). The letter claimed that “there are disturbing images of divisiveness and racism in our City that need to be revisited immediately. That starts with City Hall.”
On Thursday, de Blasio said in a press conference that Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence and served as the 3rd President of the United States, has a legacy that “profoundly bothers people, and…it’s something that can’t be ignored.”
The City Council has agreed to find a new home for the statue, and suggestions that have been made include the Governor’s Room or the New York Historical Society. The seven-foot-tall statue, which is a plaster replica of Jefferson’s statue in the U.S. Capitol, is 188 years old.
The targeting of Jefferson’s statue is the latest in a series of attacks on historic monuments across the country. Last year, in the midst of race riots by far-left domestic terrorist organizations such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa, hundreds of statues and other monuments were vandalized or destroyed by rioters, including statues of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Some statues were formally removed by local authorities in order to placate the violent rioters.