Biden Removes William Penn Statue From Historic Pennsylvania Park in ‘Inclusive’ Makeover

The Biden administration’s National Park Service is starting a ‘rehabilitation’ process for a Pennsylvania park that incudes the removal of a statue of founder William Penn and inclusion of representation of Native American tribes.

The Deb Haaland-led parks service sent out the request for input on the changes to Welcome Park Friday on their website and in a post on X.

Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania in 1681, was notorious for his amicable relations with the Native tribes of the region. The park was established 300 years later.

The park itself is named after the ship Penn sailed to America and includes a museum dedicated to celebrating the life and contributions of William Penn.

However, the parks service says it wants to ‘provide a more welcoming, accurate, and inclusive experience for visitors.’

That means, according to the request for ideas, an ‘expanded interpretation of the Native American history of Philadelphia.’

Officials said the proposal was put together working with members of the Haudenosaunee, the Delaware Nation, the Delaware Tribe of Indians, the Shawnee Tribe and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.

Public feedback has been asked to be submitted to the NPS website starting Monday and running until January 21.

However, many on social media have already given more than their two cents about the decision.

One asked: ‘How about no more of our tax money for the US Park Service?’

‘I say a bigger William Penn statue. You people are unreal,’ wrote another.

The proposal also includes a planted buffer on three sides of the park, a gathering space and new circular benches.

It comes amid a recent push to reconsider statues erected to heroes of various eras of American history.

A Confederate reconciliation memorial was removed from Arlington National Cemetery, ignoring a recent demand from over 40 Republican congressmen to stop the Pentagon from following through.

Safety fencing was installed around the memorial and a judge initially stopped the removal, before allowing it to continue. On December 20, the statue was removed.

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin disagreed with the decision proposed moving the monument to the New Market Battlefield State Historical Park in the Shenandoah Valley, spokeswoman Macaulay Porter said.

In 2022, an independent commission recommended that the memorial be taken down, as part of its final report to Congress on the renaming of military bases and assets that commemorate the Confederacy.

In 2020, Congress mandated the Defense Department had to remove all ‘names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America’ by 2024.

In New York, bureaucrats have said cash should be found to remove statues of America’s founding fathers despite a $12billion migrant crisis that will ‘destroy’ New York City, its mayor has been told.

The city’s Cultural Affairs Committee has demanded the eviction of George Washington and Christopher Columbus and others from public spaces because of links to slavery, along with the establishment of a reparations task force.

The plans before the city council come after Mayor Eric Adams warned that New Yorkers face a ‘financial tsunami’ from the cost of providing for more than 10,000 new migrants a month.

But they have prompted fury as the city scratches around for resources with libraries, meals for senior citizens and childcare all now at risk.