A bronze statue of Confederate General Albert Pike was reinstalled over the weekend in Washington, D.C., after rioters from the 202 Black Lives Matter protests in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, tore it down.
The statue has been in storage for five years, after rioters tore it down using rope, and then vandalized it with spray paint, and then set it on fire.
JUST IN: The National Park Service announced it will restore and reinstall the bronze statue of Albert Pike, which was TORN DOWN and vandalized during the 2020 BLM riots
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 5, 2025
Thank God Trump won pic.twitter.com/5jG4HSXGkp
Crews were seen placing it back on its 16-foot granite pedestal on Saturday near Judiciary Square in the nation's Capital. The statue itself stands at 11 feet tall.
Something I've seen no one else mention is that yesterday Trump's NPS restored the statue of General Albert Pike in DC after it was pulled down by rioters in 2020 pic.twitter.com/F0LfV48RTU
— Keel-Billed Poster ⚓ (@bird_hmm) October 28, 2025
The push to restore the statue traces back to President Donald Trump’s 2020 executive orders titled “Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful” and “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”
Those orders instructed federal agencies to protect and repair historic monuments damaged during the 2020 unrest, while emphasizing the defense of American monuments, the preservation of national heritage, and resistance to what Trump called the “revisionist movement.”
Pike was not only a Confederate General but also an Associate Justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court. He was also among the most prominent figures in American Freemasonry’s history. The statue portrays Pike in full Masonic attire, a double-breasted vest, and a long coat. His right arm is outstretched, while his left holds a book believed to be his seminal work, "Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry."
The restoration was torched by Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton of Washington, D.C., who had tried for years to tear it down.
"The morally objectionable move is an affront to the mostly Black and Brown residents of the District of Columbia and offensive to members of the military who serve honorably," Norton said in a statement. "Pike himself served dishonorably. He took up arms against the United States, misappropriated funds and was ultimately captured and imprisoned by his own troops. He resigned in disgrace after committing a war crime and dishonoring even his own Confederate military service."
