Taking Teddy Down

nstalled in 1940 in front of the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, an equestrian bronze of Theodore Roosevelt flanked by reported that activists protested a museum plan to donate the statue to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota, observing that portions of the site of the new library, expected to be completed in 2026, had been taken from local tribes. Last fall the TR Library, acknowledging the controversy, said it was conferring with indigenous groups, Blacks, scholars, and historians on how to present the statue in context. The deal with the city of New York requires that the municipal Public Design Commission approve the transfer and any display plans. “Museums are supposed to do hard things,” said Edward F. O’Keefe, chief executive officer of the library foundation. “It is said that ‘those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,’ and our job is to forthrightly examine history to understand the present and make a better future.”