Joe Flood
October 28, 2025
Albert Pike does not deserve a statue in Washington, DC. He does not deserve a statue anywhere.
Despite this, the Trump administration has returned Pike to his plinth after it was torn down by Black Lives Matter demonstrators on Juneteenth in 2020.
They had good reason to yank Pike from his perch. He was a slaveholder, a Confederate General and helped start the Ku Klux Klan.
In the summer of 2020, I saw him on his back, defaced with graffiti and surrounded by crowds who were posing for photos with this fallen symbol. It seemed a fitting end to the old racist. (Read about those crazy times in How I Became Red Bike Guy.)
The statue had been erected in 1901, supposedly for his contributions to the Masons, but this was the era of Jim Crow, when the progress of Reconstruction was being rolled back across the country. By placing his statue in Judiciary Square, near the courthouse, they were sending an unmistakable message: white supremacy is back.
Even at this time, it was controversial to honor a Confederate in the Nation’s Capital. Union veterans objected.
Over time, it became more objectionable and from the 1990s onward, the DC city government appealed for its removal (it’s on federal land). Congress did nothing.
So, on the night of June 19th, 2020, the people took matters into their own hands and toppled Pike.
Five years later, he’s back, reinstalled by the Trump administration, despite the government shutdown.
When I went by on Monday, Pike was surrounded by a fence and protected by the Park Police. A statue gets 24/7 police protection in Washington, DC.
This regime spends a lot of time and effort on statues. Just a few weeks ago, they removed the Trump-Epstein statue, which mocked the close connections between the two men.
Statues matter. They send a message to future generations about what our elite class valued.
Albert Pike was a terrible general, whose Native American soldiers were routed during the Civil War and accused of atrocities. After the defeat, he stole the treasury, disobeyed orders and was jailed for fraud. Pike was considered a traitor in two countries – the USA and the Confederacy. And then he ripped off his fellow Masons to invent the rituals and organization of the KKK.
Incompetent, treasonous, an asshole. He’s the perfect symbol for the Trump administration. No wonder they were so anxious for his return.
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