Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes
| Published date | 08 July 2020 |
| Record Number | 2020-14872 |
| Section | Presidential Documents |
| Court | Executive Office Of The President |
Federal Register, Volume 85 Issue 131 (Wednesday, July 8, 2020)
[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 131 (Wednesday, July 8, 2020)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 41165-41168]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-14872]
[[Page 41163]]
Vol. 85
Wednesday,
No. 131
July 8, 2020
Part III
The President
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Executive Order 13934--Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American
Heroes
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 131 / Wednesday, July 8, 2020 /
Presidential Documents
___________________________________________________________________
Title 3--
The President
[[Page 41165]]
Executive Order 13934 of July 3, 2020
Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American
Heroes
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. America owes its present greatness
to its past sacrifices. Because the past is always at
risk of being forgotten, monuments will always be
needed to honor those who came before. Since the time
of our founding, Americans have raised monuments to our
greatest citizens. In 1784, the legislature of Virginia
commissioned the earliest statue of George Washington,
a ``monument of affection and gratitude'' to a man who
``unit[ed] to the endowment[s] of the Hero the virtues
of the Patriot'' and gave to the world ``an Immortal
Example of true Glory.'' I Res. H. Del. (June 24,
1784). In our public parks and plazas, we have erected
statues of great Americans who, through acts of wisdom
and daring, built and preserved for us a republic of
ordered liberty.
These statues are silent teachers in solid form of
stone and metal. They preserve the memory of our
American story and stir in us a spirit of
responsibility for the chapters yet unwritten. These
works of art call forth gratitude for the
accomplishments and sacrifices of our exceptional
fellow citizens who, despite their flaws, placed their
virtues, their talents, and their lives in the service
of our Nation. These monuments express our noblest
ideals: respect for our ancestors, love of freedom, and
striving for a more perfect union. They are works of
beauty, created as enduring tributes. In preserving
them, we show reverence for our past, we dignify our
present, and we inspire those who are to come. To build
a monument is to ratify our shared national project.
To destroy a monument is to desecrate our common
inheritance. In recent weeks, in the midst of protests
across America, many monuments have been vandalized or
destroyed. Some local governments have responded by
taking their monuments down. Among others, monuments to
Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Francis Scott Key,
Ulysses S. Grant, leaders of the abolitionist movement,
the first all-volunteer African-American regiment of
the Union Army in the Civil War, and American soldiers
killed in the First and Second World Wars have been
vandalized, destroyed, or removed.
These statues are not ours alone, to be discarded at
the whim of those inflamed by fashionable political
passions; they belong to generations that have come
before us and to generations yet unborn. My
Administration will not abide an assault on our
collective national memory. In the face of such acts of
destruction, it is our responsibility as Americans to
stand strong against this violence, and to peacefully
transmit our great national story to future generations
through newly commissioned monuments to American
heroes.
Sec. 2. Task Force for Building and Rebuilding
Monuments to American Heroes. (a) There is hereby
established the Interagency Task Force for Building and
Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes (Task Force).
The Task Force shall be chaired by the Secretary of the
Interior (Secretary), and shall include the following
additional members:
(i) the Administrator of General Services (Administrator);
(ii) the Chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA);
[[Page 41166]]
(iii) the Chairperson of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH);
(iv) the Chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP);
and
(v) any officers or employees of any executive department or agency
(agency) designated by the President or the Secretary.
(b) The Department of the Interior shall provide
funding and administrative support as may be necessary
for the performance and functions of the Task Force.
The Secretary shall designate an official of the
Department of the Interior to serve as the Executive
Director of the Task Force, responsible for
coordinating its day-to-day activities.
(c) The Chairpersons of the NEA and NEH and the
Chairman of the ACHP shall establish cross-department
initiatives within the NEA, NEH, and ACHP,
respectively, to advance the purposes of the Task Force
and this order and to coordinate relevant agency
operations with the Task Force.
Sec. 3. National Garden of American Heroes. (a) It
shall be the policy of the United States to establish a
statuary park named the National Garden of American
Heroes (National Garden).
(b) Within 60 days of the date of this order, the
Task Force shall submit a report to the President
through the Assistant to the President for Domestic
Policy that proposes options for the creation of the
National Garden, including potential locations for the
site. In identifying options, the Task Force shall:
(i) strive to open the National Garden expeditiously;
(ii) evaluate the feasibility of creating the National Garden through a
variety of potential avenues, including existing agency authorities and
appropriations; and
(iii) consider the availability of authority to encourage and accept the
donation or loan of statues by States, localities, civic organizations,
businesses, religious organizations, and individuals, for display at the
National Garden.
(c) In addition to the requirements of subsection
3(b) of this order, the proposed options for the
National Garden should adhere to the criteria described
in subsections (c)(i) through (c)(vi) of this section.
(i) The National Garden should be composed of statues, including statues of
John Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Daniel Boone, Joshua Lawrence
Chamberlain, Henry Clay, Davy Crockett, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart,
Benjamin Franklin, Billy Graham, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson,
Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Douglas MacArthur, Dolley
Madison, James Madison, Christa McAuliffe, Audie Murphy, George S. Patton,
Jr., Ronald Reagan, Jackie Robinson, Betsy Ross, Antonin Scalia, Harriet
Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, George Washington, and
Orville and Wilbur Wright.
(ii) The National Garden should be opened for public access prior to the
250th anniversary of the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence on
July 4, 2026.
(iii) Statues should depict historically significant Americans, as that
term is defined in section 7 of this order, who have contributed positively
to America throughout our history. Examples include: the Founding Fathers,
those who fought for the abolition of slavery or participated in the
underground railroad, heroes of the United States Armed Forces, recipients
of the Congressional Medal of Honor or Presidential Medal of Freedom,
scientists and inventors, entrepreneurs, civil rights leaders, missionaries
and religious leaders, pioneers and explorers, police officers and
firefighters killed or injured in the line of duty, labor leaders,
advocates for the poor and disadvantaged, opponents of national socialism
or international socialism, former Presidents of the United States and
other elected officials, judges and justices, astronauts, authors,
intellectuals, artists, and teachers. None will have lived perfect lives,
but all will be worth honoring, remembering, and studying.
[[Page 41167]]
(iv) All statues in the National Garden should be lifelike or realistic
representations of the persons they depict, not abstract or modernist
representations.
(v) The National Garden should be located on a site of natural beauty that
enables visitors to enjoy nature, walk among the statues, and be inspired
to learn about great figures of America's history. The site should be
proximate to at least one major population center, and the site should not
cause significant disruption to the local community.
(vi) As part of its civic education mission, the National Garden should
also separately maintain a collection of statues for temporary display at
appropriate sites around the United States that are accessible to the
general public.
Sec. 4. Commissioning of New Statues and Works of Art.
(a) The Task Force shall examine the appropriations
authority of the agencies represented on it in light of
the purpose and policy of this order. Based on its
examination of relevant authorities, the Task Force
shall make recommendations for the use of these
agencies' appropriations.
(b) To the extent appropriate and consistent with
applicable law and the other provisions of this order,
Task Force agencies that are authorized to provide for
the commissioning of statues or monuments shall, in
expending funds, give priority to projects involving
the commissioning of publicly accessible statues of
persons meeting the criteria described in section
3(b)(iii) of this order, with particular preference for
statues of the Founding Fathers, former Presidents of
the United States, leading abolitionists, and
individuals involved in the discovery of America.
(c) To the extent appropriate and consistent with
applicable law, these agencies shall prioritize
projects that will result in the installation of a
statue as described in subsection (b) of this section
in a community where a statue depicting a historically
significant American was removed or destroyed in
conjunction with the events described in section 1 of
this order.
(d) After consulting with the Task Force, the
Administrator of General Services shall promptly revise
and thereafter operate the General Service
Administration's (GSA's) Art in Architecture (AIA)
Policies and Procedures, GSA Acquisition Letter V-10-
01, and Part 102-77 of title 41, Code of Federal
Regulations, to prioritize the commission of works of
art that portray historically significant Americans or
events of American historical significance or
illustrate the ideals upon which our Nation was
founded. Priority should be given to public-facing
monuments to former Presidents of the United States and
to individuals and events relating to the discovery of
America, the founding of the United States, and the
abolition of slavery. Such works of art should be
designed to be appreciated by the general public and by
those who use and interact with Federal buildings.
Priority should be given to this policy above other
policies contained in Part 102-77 of title 41, Code of
Federal Regulations, and revisions made pursuant to
this subsection shall be made to supersede any
regulatory provisions of AIA that may conflict with or
otherwise impede advancing the purposes of this
subsection.
(e) When a statue or work of art commissioned
pursuant to this section is meant to depict a
historically significant American, the statue or work
of art shall be a lifelike or realistic representation
of that person, not an abstract or modernist
representation.
Sec. 5. Educational Programming. The Chairperson of the
NEH shall prioritize the allocation of funding to
programs and projects that educate Americans about the
founding documents and founding ideals of the United
States, as appropriate and to the extent consistent
with applicable law, including section 956 of title 20,
United States Code. The founding documents include the
Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the
Federalist Papers. The founding ideals include equality
under the law, respect for inalienable individual
rights, and representative self-government. Within 90
days of the conclusion of each Fiscal Year from 2021
through 2026, the Chairperson
[[Page 41168]]
shall submit a report to the President through the
Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy that
identifies funding allocated to programs and projects
pursuant to this section.
Sec. 6. Protection of National Garden and Statues
Commissioned Pursuant to this Order. The Attorney
General shall apply section 3 of Executive Order 13933
of June 26, 2020 (Protecting American Monuments,
Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal
Violence), with respect to violations of Federal law
regarding the National Garden and all statues
commissioned pursuant to this order.
Sec. 7. Definition. The term ``historically significant
American'' means an individual who was, or became, an
American citizen and was a public figure who made
substantive contributions to America's public life or
otherwise had a substantive effect on America's
history. The phrase also includes public figures such
as Christopher Columbus, Junipero Serra, and the
Marquis de La Fayette, who lived prior to or during the
American Revolution and were not American citizens, but
who made substantive historical contributions to the
discovery, development, or independence of the future
United States.
Sec. 8. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order
shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or
the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget
relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with
applicable law and subject to the availability of
appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not,
create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural,
enforceable at law or in equity by any party against
the United States, its departments, agencies, or
entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any
other person.
(Presidential Sig.)
THE WHITE HOUSE,
July 3, 2020.
[FR Doc. 2020-14872
Filed 7-7-20; 11:15 am]
Billing code 3295-F0-P
