Perhaps in a few years, you’ll be able to stroll through a garden — location TBA — past life-size statues of 250 mostly famous Americans and American-adjacent folks, from George Washington and Rosa Parks to Dr. Seuss, Christopher Columbus, Muhammad Ali and Elvis.
A tiny chunk of the big bill that President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4 allots $40 million to create a “National Garden of American Heroes,” a park Trump first proposed during the racial justice protests of 2020, when many Confederate and other monuments nationwide were being toppled.
So if the garden is a go, who are the heroes?
A 2021 executive order listed 244 mostly household names, all deceased, who embodied “the American spirit of daring and defiance, excellence and adventure, courage and confidence, loyalty and love.”
The list comes with one giant caveat: These people were chosen four years before Trump’s “anti-DEI” scrubbing of references to some notable people, including Black, Hispanic and female veterans, from federal spaces. A White House spokesperson said in an email last week that the final list of honorees remains under consideration.
