CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A committee set up by Mayor Lightfoot to review Chicago’s public art collection has identified 41 statues and other monuments that need further review and invite the public to weigh in.
The statues, plaques, and artwork include those of four former U.S. presidents: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant and William McKinley.
Also on the list: the two statues of Christopher Columbus that Lightfoot ordered to have “temporarily” removed, as they were targeted by Black Lives Matter protesters following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
In August, City Hall then launched the Chicago Monuments Project and created an advisory committee to conduct a comprehensive review of more than 500 Chicago statues and monuments, with an eye toward identifying those that were offensive, problematic, or not representative of city’s values of equity and justice.
The committee revealed last month 41 monuments it deemed as problematic, for reasons such as, promoting narratives of white supremacy; presenting an inaccurate or demeaning portrayal of Native Americans; celebrating people with connections to slavery, genocide, or racist acts; or “presenting selective, over-simplified, one-sided views of history.”
Now, the Chicago Monument Project is seeking feedback at public forums and through its website through April 1.
"This project is a powerful opportunity for us to come together as a city to assess the many monuments and memorials across our neighborhoods and communities—to face our history and what and how we memorialize that history," said Mayor Lightfoot. "Given the past year and in particular the past summer that made clear history isn’t past, it is essential that residents are a part of this conversation. This project is about more than a single statue or mural, it’s about channeling our city's dynamic civic energy to permanently memorialize our shared values, history and heritage as Chicagoans in an open and democratic way."
Others on the list include the General John Logan Monument in Grant Park; the General Philip Henry Sheridan Monument at Belmont and Lake Shore Drive; a statue of Benjamin Franklin in Lincoln Park; the Haymarket Riot Monument/ Police Memorial at 1300 W. Jackson Blvd; the Italo Balbo Monument in Burnham Park; and the Jean Baptiste Beaubien plaque at the Chicago Cultural Center.
Some statues have already been put into storage, like the Ft Dearborn Massacre, which was removed from public display in the South Loop in 1997. The committee calls it “sensationalist and luridly violent."
One that isn’t on the list is of Stephen Douglas, which sits atop his tomb in Bronzeville. Last summer, some members of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus called for the removal of the statue, which they said was “a tribute to a widely known racist and sexist who even staked his presidential platform on the subjugation of any non-white male in America.”
The Chicago Monuments Project is the city’s first effort to grapple with the often unacknowledged – or forgotten – history associated with the city’s various municipal art collections and provides a vehicle to address the hard truths of Chicago’s racial history, confront the ways in which that history has and has not been memorialized, and develop a framework for marking public space that elevates new ways to memorialize Chicago’s true and complete history.
Using feedback collected through the upcoming public art and engagement efforts, the city, along with various stakeholder groups, will create a plan to erect a series of new monuments that equitably acknowledge Chicago’s shared history.
The Chicago Monuments Project also seeks project ideas from individual artists and/or community groups for the development of new monuments that rethink the place, purpose and permanence of monuments in our public spaces. Deadline for submissions is April 1.
Here’s the full list of the 41 statues that are under review:
--The Alarm in Lincoln Park
--Robert Cavelier de La Salle in Lincoln Park
--Fort Dearborn Massacre in storage
--Bull and Indian Maiden in Garfield Park
--A Signal of Peace in Lincoln Park
--Illinois Centennial Monument in Logan Square Park
--The Republic in Jackson Park
--Tablet dedicated to Jolliet and Marquette on the DuSable Bridge
--Tablet dedicated to Cavelier de La Salle on the DuSable Bridge
--Jacques Marquette-Louis Jolliet Memorial at Marshall and 24th Blvd
--Indian (The Bowman and the Spearman) in Grant Park
--The Defense on the DuSable Bridge
--The Pioneers on the DuSable Bridge
--Discoverers on the DuSable Bridge
--Regeneration on the DuSable Bridge
--Damen Avenue Bridge Marquette Monument, located at 2618 S. Damen
--Christopher Columbus Monument in storage
--Drake Fountain in storage
--Columbus Monument in storage
--Standing Lincoln in Lincoln Park
--General John Logan Monument in Grant Park
--Ulysses S. Grant Monument in Lincoln Park
--General Philip Henry Sheridan in Lake View East
--Seated Lincoln in Grant Park
--Lincoln in Lincoln Square
--Lincoln Rail Splitter in Garfield Park
--Young Lincoln in Senn Park
--Benjamin Franklin in Lincoln Park
--George Washington in Washington Park
--Robert Morris-George Washington-Haym Salomon Monument in Heald Square
--Haymarket Riot Monument/Police Memorial at the Police Training Center, 1300 W. Jackson Blvd
--Leif Ericson in Humboldt Park
--Bust of Melville Fuller in Fuller Park Field House
--Italo Balbo Monument in Burnham Park
--Kinzie Mansion Plaque in storage
--Indian Boundary Lines Plaque near Rogers Avenue and Clark Street
--Marquette Campsite Plague in the Equitable Building Plaza
--Jean Baptiste Beaubien Plaque at the Chicago Cultural Center
--Chicago River Plaque on the DuSable Bridge
--Wilderness, Winter Scene Mural in the Legler Regional Library
--William McKinley Monument in McKinley Park