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New York a approuvé, lundi, le retrait de la statue d'un des pères fondateurs des États-Unis, Thomas Jefferson, en raison de son passé esclavagiste. Le troisième président américain détenait dans sa plantation de Virginie plus de 600 esclaves.">
The city of New York approved on Monday the removal of the statue of one of the founding fathers of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, because of his slave past. The third American president held in his plantation in Virginia more than 600 slaves.
His statue will have presided over the council chamber of the New York municipality for more than a hundred years: the city of New York gave, Monday, October 19, its approval for the withdrawal of the statue of Thomas Jefferson, one of the fathers founders of the United States, and co-author of its declaration of independence. A commission of the city council unanimously adopted the principle of the withdrawal of Thomas Jefferson, citing his slave past: he held in his plantation in Virginia more than 600 slaves, and had six children by one of them.
The removal of the statue had been requested for several years by Latino and black city councilors, and is now expected to join a hall of the New York City historical society. Third US President, “Thomas Jefferson represents some of the most shameful pages in the long and nuanced history of our country,” said African-American New York City Councilor Adrienne Adams.
But the decision is far from unanimous. “Why was this statue created? Not to pay homage to the slave owner, but because Jefferson was one of the most important thinkers of democracy and equality in American history,” explained to the ‘AFP David Greenberg, professor of history at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
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Debate revived with the Black Lives Matter movement
Often presented as a spirit of the Enlightenment, Thomas Jefferson nevertheless owned more than 600 slaves and had six children by one of them, Sally Hemings.
The debate over American tutelary figures is old, and the first calls to remove the Jefferson statue from the council chamber in New York date back to the early 2000s.
The debate had been revived with the Black Lives Matter movement, born from the death of the African-American George Floyd, asphyxiated under the knee of a white police officer, in May 2020, in Minneapolis.
Several monuments representing Thomas Jefferson had been vandalized and the movement had repercussions even in other countries, where historical figures suffered the same fate because of their colonial past.
In 2019, Jefferson’s own town, Charlottesville, Virginia, decided to stop celebrating the birthday of this illustrious politician with a holiday.
With AFP
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