Overview
- Crews returned the 27-foot bronze monument to its Judiciary Square pedestal on Oct. 26, with fencing and U.S. Park Police on site.
- The statue had been in storage since protesters pulled it down and set it on fire on Juneteenth 2020 during racial justice demonstrations.
- Interior and National Park Service statements cite compliance with federal historic-preservation duties and recent executive orders to restore pre-existing statues.
- Authorized by Congress in 1898 and dedicated in 1901, the memorial honors Pike’s leadership in Freemasonry and is the capital’s only outdoor statue of a Confederate general.
- D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton condemned the reinstallation, and a new congressional bill seeks to remove the monument again, leaving its future unresolved.