Thomas Jefferson is officially unwelcome at the New York City Council. Officials removed his statue from the council’s chambers back in 2021 because they considered its presence offensive.
Jefferson was, of course, the author of the Declaration of Independence, the third president of the United States, a champion of education, and a brilliant polymath. In toasting a large group of Nobel laureates, President John F. Kennedy famously remarked, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
In calling for the statue’s removal, however, one former council member and then-state assemblyman had a different view: Jefferson was “a slaveholding pedophile who should not be honored.”
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