For the past six years, a towering bronze statue of Caesar Rodney — signer of the Declaration of Independence and enslaver — has been gathering dust in storage, most recently in the darkness of a Delaware warehouse.
But that’s about to change. Soon, the statue of Rodney astride his horse, removed from public view during the 2020 racial justice protests, will be brought to Washington and displayed in a much more august setting, on an outdoor concourse on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the U.S. Capitol honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
The National Park Service plans to install the Rodney statue temporarily in Freedom Plaza, a federal park in downtown Washington that was renamed to honor the civil rights leader in 1988. The statue would be displayed for up to six months as part of the nation’s celebration of its 250th birthday, according to Interior Department documents obtained by The Washington Post.
“As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, the Trump administration has been committed to celebrating and acknowledging the full breadth of our nation’s history, including the story of Caesar Rodney and his pivotal ride in July 1776,” an Interior Department spokesperson said in a statement when asked to confirm the Park Service’s plan. “Despite being gravely ill with a cancerous condition that caused him constant pain, he rode through a violent storm to cast Delaware’s deciding vote for American Independence. The hard work and sacrifices of the men and women who built this nation deserve to be remembered and honored.”
Rodney, who suffered from a disfiguring facial cancer, died in 1784.
The spokesperson’s statement does not mention Rodney owned a plantation and enslaved more than 200 people or that the statue had been taken down by the city of Wilmington in 2020 as racial justice protests flared across the country following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. That year saw the removal of a record number of statues and memorials honoring Confederate soldiers and leaders, enslavers and other historical figures including Christopher Columbus.
The Interior Department did not respond to questions about whether the placement of Rodney’s statue in Washington would acknowledge his role as an enslaver.