This was published 5 months ago
‘Going to grab a pickaxe’: Kennedy family furious after Trump adds name to memorial
Updated ,first published
Washington: Workers have added Donald Trump’s name to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts on Friday, a day after members of the venue’s board voted for the change despite questions about their legal authority to do so.
The centre was established in law as a “living memorial” to Kennedy just two months after the Democratic president’s assassination in November 1963, with Congress passing legislation in early 1964 to rename the building, which was being planned as a national cultural centre when Kennedy was killed.
The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the centre into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.
But on Friday morning, Trump’s name was added to the exterior of the centre, above the existing lettering that honours Kennedy. Washington’s premier arts venue also now refers to itself as “The Trump Kennedy Centre” at the top of its homepage.
Blue tarps were hung in front of the building to obscure workers on scaffolding as they executed the transformation. Hours later the centre had a new name: The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts.
The change, which may face legal hurdles, marks the latest effort by the administration and its allies to remake the capital in Trump’s image, including the renaming of the US Institute of Peace after the president and the construction of a new White House ballroom that may cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
The US Treasury is also considering minting a $US1 coin featuring Trump’s visage to commemorate the nation’s 250th birthday.
The arts centre board that renamed the venue was handpicked by Trump, who is also the board’s chairman. Trump said he was “surprised” and “honoured” by the decision.
The Kennedy Centre said the vote recognised Trump’s work to revitalise the institution but critics of the vote, including Democratic members of Congress who are ex officio board members, as well as some historians, insist that only Congress can change the centre’s name.
“The Kennedy Centre was named by law. To change the name would require a revision of that 1964 law,” Ray Smock, a former House historian, said in an email.
“The Kennedy Centre board is not a lawmaking entity. Congress makes laws.”
The Kennedy family has also spoken out against the move.
“It is beyond comprehension that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy,” Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family, said in a post on X on Thursday, when the board’s decision was first announced.
Kerry Kennedy, a niece of John F. Kennedy, said in a social post on X that she will remove Trump’s name herself when his term ends.
“Three years and one month from today, I’m going to grab a pickaxe and pull those letters off that building, but I’m going to need help holding the ladder. Are you in?” she wrote on a photo of the centre’s new name. “Applying for my carpenter’s card today, so it’ll be a union job!!!”
Bloomberg, AP
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