President Trump issued and executive order to create a “National Garden of American Heroes” that will feature statues of Americans who made a great contribution to the country. It is set to be completed no later than 2026. It will feature history makers such as Jackie Robinson, the fourth Black man to play major league baseball.
The first was Fleet Walker in the 1800s who played for the Toledo Blue Stockings. Walker was the fans favorite player. His brother Weldy Walker was the third Black player in the major leagues. Weldy became an inventor and he invented a new type of shell that would not explode until it reached it’s target and he had three patents for reels used by projectionists. He was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
Robinson was not the first but what he accomplished in his first season with the Brooklyn Dodgers changed baseball forever. It’ a shame that it had not been done 45 years before.
The complete list of statues for the garden are:
John Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Daniel Boone, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Henry Clay, Davy Crockett, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Benjamin Franklin, Billy Graham, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Douglas MacArthur, Dolley Madison, James Madison, Christa McAuliffe, Audie Murphy, George S. Patton, Jr., Ronald Reagan, Jackie Robinson, Betsy Ross, Antonin Scalia, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, George Washington, and Orville and Wilbur Wright.
“Statues are silent teachers in solid form of stone and metal,” the executive order reads. “[They] call forth gratitude for the accomplishments and sacrifices of our exceptional fellow citizens who, despite their flaws, placed their virtues, their talents, and their lives in the service of our Nation … In preserving them, we show reverence for our past, we dignify our present, and we inspire those who are to come. To build a monument is to ratify our shared national project.”
“To destroy a monument is to desecrate our common inheritance,” the order continues. “My Administration will not abide an assault on our collective national memory. In the face of such acts of destruction, it is our responsibility as Americans to stand strong against this violence, and to peacefully transmit our great national story to future generations through newly commissioned monuments to American heroes.”