So the Trump Administration has now placed a previously-warehoused equestrian statue of Cesar Rodney, a minor Revolutionary War-era figure and major enslaver, at the center of a display on DC’s Freedom Plaza.
I find this disturbing, to say the least.
For 20 years, my DOJ office at National Place overlooked Freedom Plaza. I watched Inaugural Parades and 4th of July fireworks from that perch. The Plaza was the launch-point of so many expressions of popular First Amendment marches to the Capitol peacefully supporting causes of importance.
In 2001, my colleagues and I saw from our windows above Freedom Plaza the smoke from the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. And, ten years later, the Occupy DC encampment on the Plaza.
The Plaza has been a symbol of the inspiring parts of the American Experiment, as well as our efforts to form “a more perfect Union,” in the words of the preamble to the Constitution.
But now it is being desecrated, like so much of our Nation’s Capital. This morning, it reminded me of a 2012 presentation I gave at our synagogue’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Shabbat Service. I share it here in a blog entitled "What Would Dr. King Occupy?" I posted after one of the current president’s disturbing early campaign appearances.
