The statue was initially built in 1925 and has taken its place outside the museum's main entrance since the year 1940. Roosevelt's father was one of the central figures who built the museum.
"The towering bronze statue depicts Roosevelt riding a horse, as two nameless African and Native American men flank him on foot," according to the Washington Post's characterization of the monument. "It has provoked strong debate in the city, as many criticized the apparent subservience of the pair to the White man in the center — calling the scene a symbol of racism and colonialism."
The removal of the statue has been scheduled for months now.
"The statue was meant to celebrate Theodore Roosevelt … as a devoted naturalist and author of works on natural history. At the same time, the statue itself communicates a racial hierarchy that the Museum and members of the public have long found disturbing," the museum's website had stated about its removal.
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Former New York Mayor Bill De Blasio had previously called the statue "problematic" and said that it "explicitly depicts Black and Indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior," while calling for the statue's removal.
The statue will now find "a fitting new home" in the state of North Dakota, where it will be on long-term loan there to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, scheduled to be completed in the year 2026. New York City officials made the decision last year, noting it could be "appropriately contextualized" there.
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“Over the last few weeks, our museum community has been profoundly moved by the ever-widening movement for racial justice that has emerged after the killing of George Floyd,” the museum’s president, Ellen V. Futter, said in an interview. “We have watched as the attention of the world and the country has increasingly turned to statues as powerful and hurtful symbols of systemic racism.”
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Ms. Futter made clear that the museum’s decision was based on the statue itself — namely its “hierarchical composition”—- and not on Roosevelt, whom the museum continues to honor as “a pioneering conservationist.” “Simply put,” she added, “the time has come to move it.”
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The museum took action amid a quarrel over the suitability of statues or monuments that first focused on Confederate symbols like Robert E. Lee and has now moved on to a wider arc of figures, from Christopher Columbus to Winston Churchill.
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