What Counting Every Monument in the U.S. Adds Up To
Monument Lab’s first-ever national audit of every public memorial and statue in the U.S. is a revealing glimpse of who and what Americans want to remember.
A statue honoring Buffalo Soldiers was dedicated in September 2021 at West Point Military Academy. It’s the first outdoor statue of a Black man at the U.S. Military Academy.
Photographer: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images North AmericaOn July 9, 1776, angry American colonists in New York took a first symbolic step toward freedom. Moved by a public proclamation of the Declaration of Independence, dozens of listeners conspired to tear down a statue of King George III in Manhattan. Under cover of night, colonial soldiers and sailors pulled down the lead statue. It was the first monument to be removed by force in U.S. history, then all of five days old.
Modeled after the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, the equestrian statue had loomed over Bowling Green since its installation six years earlier. While the monument was made to commemorate the British monarch’s munificence, it was destined for the forge. Pieces of the metal tyrant were melted down to create ammunition for the Revolution: 42,088 musket balls exactly.