A Thomas Jefferson statue is on its way out of New York’s City Council Chamber, after members of the Public Design Commission agreed to take the nation’s third president and well-known slaveowner off of his pedestal.
The statue currently occupies a prominent spot near the chamber’s main dais, where Jefferson has towered over council members for more than 100 years.
Jefferson’s statue should not be in “a position of honor and recognition and tribute” in the chamber, council member Inez Barron said during a public meeting on Monday about the statue’s future, adding that Jefferson “felt that Blacks were inferior to whites — in his own words.”
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