Executive Order on Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence

"By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1.  Purpose.  The first duty of government is to ensure domestic tranquility and defend the life, property, and rights of its citizens.  Over the last 5 weeks, there has been a sustained assault on the life and property of civilians, law enforcement officers, government property, and revered American monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial.  Many of the rioters, arsonists, and left-wing extremists who have carried out and supported these acts have explicitly identified themselves with ideologies — such as Marxism — that call for the destruction of the United States system of government.

Anarchists and left-wing extremists have sought to advance a fringe ideology that paints the United States of America as fundamentally unjust and have sought to impose that ideology on Americans through violence and mob intimidation.  They have led riots in the streets, burned police vehicles, killed and assaulted government officers as well as business owners defending their property, and even seized an area within one city where law and order gave way to anarchy.  During the unrest, innocent citizens also have been harmed and killed.

These criminal acts are frequently planned and supported by agitators who have traveled across State lines to promote their own violent agenda.  These radicals shamelessly attack the legitimacy of our institutions and the very rule of law itself.

Key targets in the violent extremists’ campaign against our country are public monuments, memorials, and statues.  Their selection of targets reveals a deep ignorance of our history, and is indicative of a desire to indiscriminately destroy anything that honors our past and to erase from the public mind any suggestion that our past may be worth honoring, cherishing, remembering, or understanding.  In the last week, vandals toppled a statue of President Ulysses S. Grant in San Francisco.  To them, it made no difference that President Grant led the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy in the Civil War, enforced Reconstruction, fought the Ku Klux Klan, and advocated for the Fifteenth Amendment, which guaranteed freed slaves the right to vote.  In Charlotte, North Carolina, the names of 507 veterans memorialized on a World War II monument were painted over with a symbol of communism.  And earlier this month, in Boston, a memorial commemorating an African-American regiment that fought in the Civil War was defaced with graffiti.  In Madison, Wisconsin, rioters knocked over the statue of an abolitionist immigrant who fought for the Union during the Civil War.  Christian figures are now in the crosshairs, too.  Recently, an influential activist for one movement that has been prominent in setting the agenda for demonstrations in recent weeks declared that many existing religious depictions of Jesus and the Holy Family should be purged from our places of worship.

Individuals and organizations have the right to peacefully advocate for either the removal or the construction of any monument.  But no individual or group has the right to damage, deface, or remove any monument by use of force.

In the midst of these attacks, many State and local governments appear to have lost the ability to distinguish between the lawful exercise of rights to free speech and assembly and unvarnished vandalism.  They have surrendered to mob rule, imperiling community safety, allowing for the wholesale violation of our laws, and privileging the violent impulses of the mob over the rights of law-abiding citizens.  Worse, they apparently have lost the will or the desire to stand up to the radical fringe and defend the fundamental truth that America is good, her people are virtuous, and that justice prevails in this country to a far greater extent than anywhere else in the world.  Some particularly misguided public officials even appear to have accepted the idea that violence can be virtuous and have prevented their police from enforcing the law and protecting public monuments, memorials, and statues from the mob’s ropes and graffiti.

My Administration will not allow violent mobs incited by a radical fringe to become the arbiters of the aspects of our history that can be celebrated in public spaces.  State and local public officials’ abdication of their law enforcement responsibilities in deference to this violent assault must end...."
Issued..
June 26, 2020...
Protecting American Monuments, Memorials......  

Secretary Zinke Sends Monument Report to the White House

"Today, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke sent a draft report to the president which included his findings and recommendations on national monuments that were under review as a result of the April 26, 2017 executive order. The report summary can be read here. The extensive 120-day review included more than 60 meetings with hundreds of advocates and opponents of monument designations, tours of monuments conducted over air, foot, car, and horseback (including a virtual tour of a marine monument), and a thorough review of more than 2.4 million public comments submitted to the Department on regulations.gov. Additionally, countless more meetings and conversations between senior Interior officials and local, state, Tribal, and non-government stakeholders including multiple Tribal listening sessions..." 
Interior Department's Monument Report

On Equal Pay Day, President Obama to Designate National Monument Honoring Women’s Equality

"Tomorrow, on Equal Pay Day, President Obama will designate a new national monument at a historic location in Washington, D.C., to honor the movement for women’s equality. The new Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument will protect the iconic house that has served as the headquarters for the National Woman’s Party since 1929. From this house, known in recent years as the Sewall-Belmont House, members of the Party led the movement for women’s equality, authoring more than 600 pieces of federal, state and local legislation in support of equal rights.

Tomorrow’s designation will permanently protect one of the oldest standing houses near the U.S. Capitol and help preserve an extensive archival collection that documents the history, strategies, tactics and accomplishments of the movement to secure women’s suffrage and equal rights in the United States and across the globe.."
National Women's Equality Monument

The U.S. Finally Has a National Monument That Honors Women’s History

"Want to visit a national monument to women’s history? Just yesterday, that wasn’t an option—though the National Park system has three congressionally chosen parks that highlight women, the President has never designated a monument in celebration of women. That changed, though, when U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced today that President Obama has designated the former headquarters of the National Woman’s Party as a monument.

Now formally called the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument, the site is one of Washington, D.C.’s oldest residences. During the 20th century, it became home to the National Woman’s Party, a group of women who fought tirelessly for universal suffrage despite taunts, threats and repeated imprisonment for their actions..."
Women's History Monument

America's Newest National Monuments

"President Obama has taken unprecedented action to invest and conserve America's natural treasures. The natural and cultural richness of our national parks, monuments, forest, and public lands are an important reflections of our environmental responsibility and the legacy we leave to future generations. That is why this President has protected more than 265 million acres of land and water – more than any other president in history.

Today, he's adding a few million acres more.

Today, he will designated three new national monuments in the California desert: Mojave Trails National Monument, Sand to Snow National Monument, and Castle Mountains National Monument. 

These designations encompass nearly 1.8 million acres and nearly double the number of acres of public lands that he's previously protected. Take a look and find out a bit more about our nation's newest national monuments..."
National monuments

Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument, Ohio

 Explore the history of the Buffalo Soldiers at the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Ohio.
 Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument, Ohio.

Review of the Management Recovery Act Funds for Monument and Memorial Repairs
"The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) provided funds to Federal agencies to acquire goods and services to help stimulate the U.S. economy. We conducted this review to determine if the National Cemetery Administration (NCA) implemented effective policies and procedures to ensure accountability and transparency for $50 million it received in ARRA funds.

What We Found
NCA was on track to meet the deadline for obligating ARRA funds. However, NCA needed to improve management processes to guarantee efficient administration of the funds in line with ARRA accountability and transparency objectives.

NCA did not use a formal process to document the prioritization and selection of ARRA-funded projects. NCA did not ensure that staff completed the documentation of procurement information, as required by Departmental guidance, by recording it in the Electronic Contract Management System (eCMS). Further, NCA did not establish outcome-based (original signed by:) performance measures for its projects to enable the achievement of ARRA-related objectives..."