William Penn statue to remain in Philadelphia park

A statue of William Penn at a Philadelphia historical site will remain in the park after the National Park Service withdrew a renovation proposal including its removal.

The service announced Monday it withdrew its draft proposal to rehabilitate Welcome Park, stating the proposal was “released prematurely” and was “not subject to a complete internal agency review.”

“No changes to the William Penn statue are planned,” the service wrote without expanding on what led to the initial proposal to remove the statute.

The park is located on the site of Penn’s former home, known as the Slate Roof House, and is named after the ship — Welcome — that brought Penn to Philadelphia in 1682, according to the service.

Penn founded Pennsylvania after receiving a charter from King Charles II for more than 45,000 square miles of land in 1681.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) appeared to take credit for the reversal of the proposal Monday, stating his team was in contact with the Biden administration throughout Monday to “correct” the decision.

“I’m pleased Welcome Park will remain the rightful home of this William Penn statue — right here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Penn founded,” Shapiro wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) also celebrated the National Park Service’s decision, writing on X, “I heard concerns that there were plans to permanently remove William Penn’s statue from Welcome Park. After checking in with the Department of the Interior, I’m pleased to report that there are no plans to remove William Penn at this time.”

Other lawmakers saw it as an example of the Biden administration and the left attempting to “cancel” Penn as part of a so-called “woke” culture movement.

Pennsylvania House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler said the proposed removal of the statue was the Biden administration’s attempt “to try and cancel William Penn out of whole cloth is another sad example of the left in this country scraping the bottom of the barrel of wokeism to advance an extreme ideology and a nonsensical view of history.”

Josh Kraushaar, the editor-in-chief for Jewish Insider and political analyst for Fox News Radio, suggested Shapiro apparently taking credit for the service’s decision is a “sign” the Pennsylvania governor knows “woke politics is toxic for Dems.”

The withdrawal came about three days after the initial announcement of the draft last week. Along with the statue removal, the draft also included expanding the interpretation of Philadelphia’s Native American history and the installation of new exhibit panels.

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