An Abraham Lincoln statue is set to return to Portland’s South Park Blocks seven years after protesters toppled it during the city’s 2020 racial justice demonstrations. But its new perch — designed to bring the monument “closer to the public” — is sparking outrage.
A group of 43 Portlanders, including Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle and businessman Jordan Schnitzer, is urging Mayor Keith Wilson to reverse the city’s plan to reinstall the monument on a newly designed, lower pedestal. In a letter sent last month, the group argued that restoring the monument should mean returning it exactly as it stood before it was torn down. To do otherwise, is an insult, they wrote.
“The act of removing Lincoln from his pedestal has a universally understood meaning; it is a demeaning gesture which permanently humiliates the person it commemorates,” the letter reads.
An announcement from the city’s Office of Arts & Culture, which is helping to oversee the statue’s return in 2027, suggested that the lower pedestal better fits the times because it further humanized an imperfect historical figure, noting that some Portlanders would prefer the Lincoln statue not return at all. Protesters knocked it over during an “Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage” protest in part because of Lincoln’s role in executing 38 Dakota men after the Dakota-U.S. War of 1862, the largest mass execution in a single day in American history.
The Lincoln statue was one of several presidential monuments toppled in Portland during demonstrations following the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
While Lincoln is widely remembered for leading the nation through the Civil War and issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, some protesters argued monuments to American political leaders represented broader systems of oppression, while also criticizing Lincoln’s record on Native American policy. Others condemned the topplings as vandalism against important historical markers.
“(R)eturning the Presidential monuments exactly as they were would not be a neutral decision,” the city’s arts office wrote. “It would be a status quo decision that overlooks the dissenting views Portlanders have shared.”
The debate over the Lincoln statue’s return echoes another dispute over one of Portland’s most iconic landmarks.
The Thompson Elk Fountain was also removed in 2020 after its base was damaged during protests. City officials initially proposed reinstallation of the elk on a redesigned pedestal before abandoning those plans following public pushback and ultimately restoring the monument to its historic appearance earlier this year.
Supporters of the original Lincoln monument say the city should follow the same approach.
Aubrey Russell, who is married to Lincoln High School Principal Peyton Chapman and is one of the signatories, said the statute should be fully restored to its higher pedestal because Lincoln was a consequential historical figure.
“That’s why there are monuments and statues elevated in Parliament Square in London and in Mexico City and many places around the world,” Russell said.
The city plans to hold a public conversation about the Lincoln monument at the Portland Art Museum on Sept. 8, when residents can view renderings of the project, learn more about the restoration and ask questions before the statue returns to the South Park Blocks next year.
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