By Paul Kersey
01/08/2024
Perhaps VDARE Editor Peter Brimelow put it best: William Penn, whom the Biden Regime planned to unperson, was a Quaker and therefore opposed slavery.
William Penn, now being unpersoned by the Biden Regime, was a Quaker and therefore opposed slavery. Also FWIW notably sympathetic to Indians
— Peter Brimelow (@peterbrimelow) January 8, 2024
Makes no difference. Nothing makes any difference. Regime just hates whites #GreatReplacement https://t.co/8YMYYZkvA8
Also, FWIW notably sympathetic to Indians Makes no difference. Regime just hates whites:
#GreatReplacement [Biden admin to remove statue of William Penn from Philadelphia park and ‘rehabilitate’ the park to commemorate Native Americans, Post Millennial, January 7, 2023
Joe Biden’s National Park Service under Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will remove the statue of William Penn from the park erected in 1982 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of his founding of the colony of Pennsylvania. The park is on the site of his original home in Philadelphia.
The park, located in Philadelphia near the Delaware River at Sansom and Second Streets, will be “rehabilitated” and that proposal will include an “expanded interpretation of the Native American history of Philadelphia.” The plan was “developed in consultations with the representatives of the indigenous nations of the Haudenosaunee, the Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe of Indians, the Shawnee Tribe, and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.”
While much of the original design of the park will remain, the statue of Penn and the model of his original home “will be removed and not reinstalled.” The Park Service claims that at some later date, which is not currently funded, there will be a new exhibit that mentions Penn and his work founding what became the state named for him as well as the city of Philadelphia.
The National Park Service, led by National Park Service Director Charles Sams III, who boasts Native American ancestry as does his boss Haaland, runs a substantial portion of Philadelphia’s historic sites. This agency is in charge of nearly 54 acres of historic sites in the Old City neighborhood, where the Penn home once stood. The Biden administration praised Haaland when she was appointed for becoming “the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary.” Equity, as the Biden White House recently stated, has “always, always” been “at the center of every policy.”
These sites include Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution drafted and debated, the Liberty Bell, Congress Hall, Franklin Court, and many more buildings and historical exhibits that Americans flock to each year to get a glimpse into the past of our nation’s founding.
The new park will be designed by famed architectural firm Venturi & Scott Brown Associates, which is the firm that was contracted to design the original in 1982 by the Friends of Independence National Historical Park. The park itself was named for William Penn’s ship, the one on which he arrives from England in 1682, called Welcome.
The park was built to celebrate Penn, his life, and the colony he founded which became the great state of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was one of the original 13 colonies, and Penn founded the colony on the principles of religious freedom and civil freedoms.
Penn’s Charter of Privileges was the governing document and was brought into effect in 1701 and acted as the constitution for what was then called Penn’s Woods. The land had been a given to Penn by King Charles II as payment for a debt that Charles owed Penn’s father who had been an admiral in the British Navy.
Penn was a Quaker who believed in religious freedom as a guiding principal. Philadelphia became known as a Quaker city, and still holds many meetinghouses and Quaker schools. Quakers were abolitionist and led the abolitionist movement. Quakers began the fight for abolition in Philadelphia in the 1680s.
Penn’s reputation was tarnished during the George Floyd riots of 2020, when local National Public Radio affiliate WHYY explored Penn’s history as a slave owner. They said that Penn “enslaved roughly 12 people” and granted some of them their freedom. WHYY complained that while Quakers protested slavery and spoke out against it, they didn’t “officially denounce it” for another 50 years. They don’t explain what they mean by that.
The slaveholding past of America’s founding fathers has been used as a crow bar to remove their statues, names and influence from American historical sites, city centers, museums, cemeteries, and other locations. Those who seek the purification of our public, visible historical records believe that no man committed a sin against the modern progressive religion should have his name or good deeds remembered.
In 2021, Democrat lawmakers in the US House proposed a bill “To remove all statues of individuals who voluntarily served the Confederate States of America from display in the United States Capitol. To remove all statues of individuals who voluntarily served the Confederate States of America from display in the United States Capitol.” The bill was called the Confederate Monument Removal Act.
While the bill did not pass, statues were removed across the US either by local governments or by agitators ripping them. Many of these were not Confederate memorials or statues, but simply statues commemorating American history. Now, the Biden administration is removing the statue of the man who founded Pennsylvania from the park commemorating that founding on the land on which his house once stood.
This was then a loud and clear message to White America: the time for honoring your past is over.
Erasing White America’s history is happening before our eyes … but in this one case, they seem to have blinked:
BREAKING UPDATE:
Biden NPS quietly withdraws its plans to remove William Penn from his home in Philadelphia following public outcry. pic.twitter.com/8QYoCsutZg
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 8, 2024
The review of the new design proposal for Welcome Park has been withdrawn. No changes to the William Penn statue are planned. For more info, please visit: https://t.co/XWk0zPbEvl. pic.twitter.com/Ly0aooxXcx
— IndependenceNPS 🇺🇸 (@INDEPENDENCENHP) January 8, 2024
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.