Chicago Mayor Plans Removal of George Washington Statue in City Hall

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has decided to remove a statue of George Washington in City Hall, but, according to a top aide, the decision has nothing to do with the first president being a slave owner.

The statue is located on the fifth floor right outside Johnson’s office, but the Democratic mayor’s communication director, Ronnie Reese, told the Chicago Sun-Times that the statue is being removed because the mayor is looking to make updates to the space.

“We’re just freshening up the space,” Reese told the outlet. “Making it a bit more current. There’s a lot of Chicago icons who would be deserving of statues as well. We should be considering that also — Ida B. Wells, DuSable, Harold Washington.”

There is no time frame for when the statue will be removed, and it has not been publicly disclosed how much it will cost the city.

Reese said Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa is leading the charge for what to do with the monuments and statues.

“I know he has an idea of having like a public area in which we could put monuments and make it kind of like an open space, like park space dedicated solely to monuments, which I think is actually a pretty decent idea,” Reese told the outlet.

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