A statue of a founding father who enslaved people was taken down in Wilmington. It’s moving to D.C.’s Freedom Plaza

The statue of a founding father who enslaved Black people in Delaware is moving from a New Castle storage facility to a venerated spot in Washington D.C.’s Freedom Plaza as part of President Donald Trump’s celebration of America’s 250th birthday.

Wilmington officials took down the statue of Caesar Rodney in 2020 amid Black Lives Matter protests and a national reckoning over racism in America, taking it out of public view at the same time as the city removed a statue of Christopher Columbus for similar reasons.

It wasn’t clear when the bronze monument of Rodney on a horse will be put on temporary display in the plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the White House, according to the New York Times, which learned of the story from a Feb. 3 National Park Service memo.

The statue had stood in Wilmington’s Rodney Square for around 100 years.

Rodney’s legend includes a partially disputed story about riding two horses 82 miles from Dover to Independence Hall to sign the Declaration of Independence — a trip five times longer than Paul Revere’s more famous ride a year earlier.

Rodney arrived spent and mud-spattered on July 2, 1776, to sign the Declaration before its formal adoption on July 4, breaking the tie between two other Delaware delegates, one of whom wouldn’t sign, said Dick Carter, chairman of the Delaware Heritage Commission. The near last-minute inscribing is true, Carter and others say, but it’s possible that Rodney, who suffered from facial cancer and was quite ill, may have covered some of the mileage in a carriage.

Giving his life to public service, Rodney was a Brigadier General in the Continental Army, a sheriff, a justice on the Delaware Supreme Court, and a delegate from Delaware to the Continental Congress.

Rodney was also among the 41 out of 56 Declaration signers who enslaved people. He was a complex and contradictory figure, especially when viewed through a 21st Century lens, Carter said, adding that it is not fair to “judge historical figures by the norms and mores of the present day.”

Rodney enslaved anywhere from 20 to 200 people on his estate near Dover. But his legacy also includes a bill he introduced in the state legislature to end the practice of importing enslaved people into Delaware. And upon his death, he freed the 18 people he’d enslaved at the time.

Trump, during his first term in 2020, praised Rodney in a proclamation issued on the founding father’s birthday.

In the proclamation, Trump condemned the removal of Rodney’s statue “as part of an ongoing, radical purge of America’s founding generation.”

Trump said it was a “re-education attempt” and the “end result of an extreme anti-American historical revisionism,” generated by “critical race theorists ... [and] mobs on city streets” who say that American is not an exceptional country “but an evil one.”

Trump has expressed similar views during his second term and taken steps to change the way Americans are educated about the nation’s history.

In January, the administration ordered the removal of exhibits depicting slavery at the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park. The U.S. Department of Interior said that the slavery-related materials were being reviewed “to ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values.” Last month, a federal judge ordered the exhibit’s restoration, though the administration is still pursuing the matter.

In the summer of 2025, the administration restored two statues in the Washington, D.C., area that commemorated the Confederacy. One was a statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike, the only outdoor statue of a Confederate military leader in the nation’s capital.

“We see a pattern of celebrating enslavers while reducing teaching about slavery in the United States and limiting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” said Timothy Wellbeck, director of the Center for Anti-Racism at Temple University. “Caesar Rodney has components of character not worth celebrating despite his contributions to America’s founding.”

Shané Darby, a councilwoman from Wilmington, told the Times that glorifying Rodney was “a slap in the face of Black and brown people of this city... . You can have him, D.C.”

That’s a view shared by other people in the Black community, said Syl Woolford, a member of the Delaware Heritage Commission. “Some folks in Wilmington are saying, ‘Get that white boy out of here,’” Woolford said. “They tell you there’s no place here for the statue of a slave owner.”

But, he and other historians say, Rodney’s place in history shouldn’t be completely ignored. Even with the statue gone, elements of Rodney remain. He still appears on the quarter that honors Delaware. And his square continues to bear his name, although there’s discussion it’ll be renamed after President Joe Biden, whose ties to Delaware run deep, Carter said.

The Department of Interior didn’t answer a request from The Inquirer to comment on criticism from Wellbeck and others that the Trump administration is exalting an enslaver. Instead, a spokesperson said, “Rodney’s journey itself reflected extraordinary courage.”

“By telling the full story ... we strengthen our shared understanding and ensure that future generations inherit not just the land we love, but the truth of the journey that brought us here,” the spokesperson added.

To avoid further consternation in Wilmington, there’s a plan to send Rodney’s statue to Dover, not Wilmington, after the 250th celebration is over, said Republican State Sen. Eric Buckson.

“Dover is Rodney’s birth and resting place,” Buckson said.

He added, however, that, “in this climate, folks are rightfully concerned about having monuments minimizing slavery.”

So, whenever Rodney comes back, his statue will be amended, Buckson said.

“It’ll include a plaque,” he added, “and that will have the story that, along with everything else, Caesar Rodney was a slave holder.”