'Monuments matter': Christopher Columbus statue standing tall once again even after radicals did their worst

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One of personages repeatedly targeted for erasure in the American left's violent iconoclasm in 2020 has at last found asylum on the White House grounds, thanks to President Donald Trump and some other unrelenting American patriots.

Toppling giants

Liberals appear to have no issue raising and keeping statues in public spaces so long as they are culturally, morally, and/or historically subversive.

Take, for example, the golden statue of a horned monster that was erected atop the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court in January 2023.

The dehumanized figure — which Pakistani-born propagandist Shahzia Sikander purportedly designed to capture the "spirit" of the movement seeking to legalize abortion across the United States — was celebrated by radicals in and outside the courthouse. Claire Bishop, professor of art history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, excitedly told the New York Times, "Maybe she can help channel us back to reinstating Roe v. Wade."

Another statue that liberal activists not only tolerated but celebrated was the ram-headed Baphomet statue the Satanic Temple installed at the Iowa Capitol along with a satanic altar ahead of Christmas that same year.

While evidently unperturbed by demonic imagery, liberal activists have evidenced an aversion in recent years to sculptures reminiscent of America's proud past, noble beginnings, and Christian character.

'These monuments matter.'

Amid the Black Lives Matter-bannered deracination campaign of 2020, radicals vandalized and/or toppled — in many cases through official actions — numerous statutes across the country, including those depicting Spanish missionary Junípero Serra and Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington.

Christopher Columbus — the Italian "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" who sailed under the Spanish flag and whose four transatlantic voyages set the stage for American civilization — was one of the 2020 iconoclasts' most popular targets.

Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

In Baltimore, masked thugs marched through the city's Little Italy neighborhood on July 4, 2020, then toppled a Columbus statue dedicated in 1984 by former Mayor William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan — a destructive act brushed off by city officials.

After tearing down the statue and jumping on the broken Italian Carrara marble likeness of the explorer, the cheering mob threw the remains into the harbor.

The incident took place just days after President Donald Trump, then in his first term, issued an executive order aimed at protecting such statues from destruction — an order where he stated that extremists' "selection of targets reveals a deep ignorance of our history, and is indicative of a desire to indiscriminately destroy anything that honors our past."

Stoop and build 'em up

Some Americans proved unwilling to let the tide wash away American history.

Tilghman Hemsley, a local painter, sculptor, and fisherman, hired a dive team to recover the broken pieces, which were taken to his family's art studio. Hemsley's son, Will, used scans of the recovered pieces to create a replica of the 13-foot statue.

The New York Times reported that the recreation project received $30,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which awarded funds in October 2020 "to help repair and restore statues of iconic historical figures that have been damaged or vandalized, and to construct new ones, in an effort to revitalize public interest in American history in advance of the nation's 250th anniversary in 2026."

Bill Martin, an Italian-American businessman, told the Washington Post that he and his allies also chipped in, raising and spending over $100,000 on the recovery and restoration efforts.

John Pica Jr., the president of Italian American Organizations United — the group that not only commissioned and owned the original statue but reportedly backed the reconstruction efforts — told the Associated Press that he was contacted in 2025 by a middleman who indicated the White House was seeking a statue of Columbus.

Will Hemsley. Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images.

Basil Russo, president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, had reportedly reached out to the Trump administration after Baltimore officials refused to install the replica in public.

'In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero.'

"Columbus statues have long stood as symbols of pride and cultural identity for more than 18 million Americans of Italian descent," Russo said in a statement.

"For over a century, Columbus' legacy helped Italian immigrants navigate prejudice and hardship, serving as a source of unity and belonging as they built new lives in this country," Russo continued. "Columbus Day itself emerged in the aftermath of the 1891 New Orleans lynching, when 11 Italian immigrants were killed by a mob of thousands, an event that prompted a national effort to promote the acceptance and assimilation of Italian Americans. This history remains central to why these monuments matter."

Working in coordination with the Italian American Organizations United, the COPOMIAO gifted the statue to the White House.

On Sunday, the statue — which was reportedly transported to the White House by Tilghman and Will Hemsley along with Randsallstown resident Jeff Bayer — was installed on the north side of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House.

Trump thanked the COPOMIAO in a letter on Sunday for its "incredible generosity in gifting the Federal Government a beautiful statue of Christopher Columbus," noting that he is "truly honored that this magnificent statue will now sit on the grounds of the White House."

The president said further that the statue will "stand as an eternal memorial to courage, adventure, and the noblest aspirations of the human spirit as well as the extraordinary pride of our wonderful Italian American community."

White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Times in a statement Sunday, "In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero, and President Trump will ensure he's honored as such for generations to come."

Tilghman Hemsley told the Baltimore Sun that the statue's installation "was very climactic and it was very fulfilling."

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