Trump Announces Creation Of Park With Statues Of National Heroes

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th July, 2020) US President Donald Trump has announced the creation of a new park that will feature statues of prominent historical figures amid a nationwide movement to take down controversial monuments.

"I am announcing the creation of a new monument to the giants of our past. I am signing an executive order to establish the National Garden of American Heroes, a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest American to ever live," Trump said in a speech at Mount Rushmore.

Statues of southern Confederate generals, who seceded from the US and fought against the northern Union during the US Civil War the institution of slavery, have become the focus of the anti-racism movement that swept the country following the death of George Floyd in police custody in late May.

The executive order made public by the White House said that an interagency task force will be created to scout a location and hash out the details in a report due in 60 days.

The order postulates that the park is to be opened on July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of US independence.

"All statues in the National Garden should be lifelike or realistic representations of the persons they depict, not abstract or modernist representations," the order reads.

Trump traveled to South Dakota to mark Independence Day at the iconic Mount Rushmore, which features the likeness of four presidents carved into the side of the Black Hills. The monument itself is not without controversy, as the lands of South Dakota, and the mountain range which features the site is land considered sacred by local Native populations and has featured a long history of bloodshed between European settlers and the indigenous. Two of the presidents featured were slave owners and all have some history of policies that the Native people consider harmful to them.