Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes
Establishes a new federal task force and sets a policy goal of creating the National Garden of American Heroes — a statuary park featuring lifelike sculptures of prominent historical Americans — and directs federal arts agencies to prioritize commissioning realistic monuments to historically significant Americans.
Creates these structures in direct response to the vandalism and removal of monuments across the country in summer 2020, redirecting federal arts funding and GSA architectural-art policy toward founding-era figures, abolitionists, and other historically significant Americans.
What this order does
What it orders
The order establishes the Interagency Task Force for Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes, chaired by the Secretary of the Interior and including the heads of the General Services Administration, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. The Task Force must submit a report within 60 days proposing locations and options for a National Garden of American Heroes — a statuary park featuring a named list of 31 figures, to be open by July 4, 2026. The order also directs the GSA Administrator to revise its Art in Architecture program to prioritize historically themed, realistic works in federal buildings, and directs the NEH to prioritize grants for programs teaching founding documents and ideals, with annual reports through 2026.
All statues and commissioned works depicting historical Americans must be lifelike or realistic rather than abstract or modernist. The order instructs the Attorney General to apply criminal enforcement provisions from a related 2020 executive order to protect the National Garden and all statues commissioned under this order. Implementation is contingent on available appropriations, and the order does not itself appropriate funds, create statutory rights, or guarantee the Garden's construction.
Who it affects
Federal agencies directed to act — including the Department of the Interior, GSA, NEA, NEH, and ACHP — as well as artists and contractors competing for federal monument commissions, communities where historical statues were removed or destroyed, and the general public who would visit the National Garden or federally commissioned public monuments.
Why it matters
Federal arts and humanities grants and GSA building-art commissions will now be steered toward realistic depictions of historical Americans, shifting priorities away from abstract or modernist styles. Communities that lost statues to vandalism or removal become eligible for priority replacement funding under the new commissioning criteria.
What must happen and when
How the order is supposed to work
The Task Force, funded by the Department of the Interior, must produce a site-options report within 60 days; that report triggers the next decision point on whether and where to build the National Garden. The GSA Administrator must promptly revise existing Art in Architecture regulations, and those revisions explicitly supersede conflicting regulatory provisions. The NEH Chairperson reports annually within 90 days of each fiscal year-end from 2021 through 2026. Enforcement of federal laws protecting the Garden is delegated to the Attorney General via a cross-reference to EO 13933. The order is subject to appropriations availability, so actual construction and commissioning require separate funding.
Actions and deadlines
- Task Force submits report to the President proposing locations and options for the National Garden
- GSA Administrator revises Art in Architecture policies and regulations to prioritize historically themed, realistic works
- Open the National Garden of American Heroes for public access
- NEH Chairperson submits annual report identifying funding allocated to founding-documents education programs