Banned Teddy Roosevelt Statue Comes Home To North Dakota

Cancelled Teddy coming to roost in North Dakota. Bringing African American and Indigenous American friends with him.

Although he doesn't seem to like either group one little bit.

New York kicked him to the curb and North Dakota swept him in like me grabbing a three-legged chair during our city-wide cleanup week.

I can't believe you're throwing that out!

Seriously, how cool is this?

I get it...it's not like Teddy charging with the Roughriders on San Juan Hill in 1898.  But let's just say that Teddy Roosevelt also assisted Native Americans and African Americans into the mainstream of American life...

Turns out at least from this little History channel blurb...Teddy did none of that.

That could certainly be said of the 26th president, whose complex legacy includes not just his achievements as a progressive reformer and conservationist who regulated big business and established the national park system. He also believed firmly in the existence of a racial hierarchy, which shaped his attitudes on race relations, land rights, American imperialism and the emerging—and disturbing—science of eugenics.

More slanderous comments from Mount Rushmore's Teddy Roosevelt...even from San Juan Hill! 

Roosevelt also believed that Black men made poor soldiers. He denigrated the efforts of the buffalo soldiers who fought alongside his men at San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War, falsely claiming that they ran away under fire. “Negro troops were shirkers in their duties and would only go as far as they were led by white officers,”

OK FINE!

So Teddy was maybe not the greatest champion of the red man or the black man...but by gumption, that fella loved North Dakota's Badlands. If he could have seen this fine statue depicting him leading these groups forward to a united America he may have considered shutting his mouth a little bit...

“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian,” he said in 1886, “but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian.”

yeesh...The History Channel seems to have it out for a guy that was supposed to "speak softly and carry a big stick".

United Press International reports that the American Museum of National History was more than happy to "loan" it out to the brand-spankin' new Medora Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation.  It had resided in New York since 1940, but due to some public New York outrage, the library itself asked the city to remove it.

North Dakota was all like- FREE TEDDY STUFF!

So it's coming to NoDak, even though there should be a little sign explaining how Teddy didn't think too much of colored people but it was just too sweet a statue to just turn away.