Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece Dr. Alveda King told “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Sunday that she loves President Trump’s idea of creating a National Garden of American Heroes that would pay tribute to historically significant Americans, including her uncle.
On Friday, Trump announced the creation of the garden that would also include former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and baseball star Jackie Robinson among past presidents, anti-slavery advocates and others. Speaking in front of Mount Rushmore on Friday night Trump said he will be signing an executive order to establish the “vast outdoor park featuring statues of the greatest Americans to ever live.”
When asked if she thinks the National Garden of American Heroes is a good idea King said, “I actually do as long as we’re speaking of our icons, people that we admire.”
She went on to say that “we have to remember” our history.
“We want to remember the good things, that is our legacy and so a memorial park or something like that is very beautiful,” King said.
The order says that the garden, to be opened before July 4, 2024, will “depict historically significant Americans … who have contributed positively to America throughout our history.”
It comes as a response to the anti-monument fervor that has gripped segments of the country, which has taken to either calling for the removal of, or simply attempting to tear down, monuments and statues of past American figures.
“I love the Susan B. Anthony statue with Frederick Douglass in New York,” King said. “There is a beautiful rose garden in … Martin Luther King Park in Atlanta, and you can kind of walk through and peacefully meditate so those types of efforts, those icons, that’s good.”
She said it’s important to remember the “good things,” but added that “we also have to remember the bad things so that we don’t do those again.”
“I love the idea of the park and I have been to several parks where the people are in their habitat, the people that we want to remember and celebrate and they’re doing good things in the habitat,” she said.
“It is almost like a community as you walk through so I believe that that’s very good what the president’s doing.”
Also speaking on “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Sunday, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said he thinks the National Garden of American Heroes is “not a bad idea.”
“I’m just not sure that it’s going to make any difference because the people tearing statues down don’t care whose statue it is,” Huckabee said. “If it honors and celebrates any wonderful American, it doesn’t matter whether he or she is black or white or male or female, it doesn’t matter. These people hate our country… and they want to see it destroyed.”
“So whatever statue you put up would be unacceptable,” he continued.
He went on to say, “If we do it, maybe we should do it with private donations.”
“Let it be a private entity that owns, operates and allows people to come in, pay an admission and that way people who really do love this country and want to celebrate its incredible history will have an opportunity to do so and it won’t be accessible to those who just want to go in and destroy it because it’s in a public place,” Huckabee explained.
