Chicago may permanently remove Christopher Columbus's statues. Read details here

Chicago city panel has recommended that the city should permanently remove three Christopher Columbus statues and the Balbo Monument in Burnham Park, and consider altering nearly 40 other monuments. In May, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she would disregard the panel's recommendations.

The city should permanently remove the three Christopher Columbus sculptures and the Balbo Monument, according to a recommendation made on Friday by the Chicago monuments project advisory committee.

The group suggested that the city takes into account changing or deleting over 40 additional monuments. It is unclear if the city would heed the advice, but Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in May that she would ignore it.


After racial justice demonstrations in 2020 and a bloody altercation with the police in which protesters tried to knock down the Columbus statue in Grant Park, the mayor formed the committee.




Since then, the group has examined more than 500 city monuments and has suggested that 41 of them to be altered, relocated or replaced to provide more context. For the creation of eight new art projects that may eventually take the place of the monuments, the city will award $50,000 in funding.

The panel's report stated that "these artist initiatives will memorialise events, persons, or groups that historically have been marginalised or underrepresented and add - permanently or temporarily - to the City's collection, to tell the actual and comprehensive history of Chicago and all of its residents, this is a necessary step."

A 'counterpoint' essay debating the preservation of the Balbo and Columbus sculptures was also included in the study. The essay was written by committee member Sergio Giangrande, a former leader of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, a group that demanded the city give the statues of Christopher Columbus back and secure them.

"I firmly oppose the dismantling of the monument honouring Italo Balbo's aviation milestone as well as any of the three sculptures of Christopher Columbus. There are facts that refute every claim made against these explorers. Most of the stories about Columbus and Balbo are simply myths, as both authors and academics can demonstrate," Sergio Giangrande claimed.