Generals who led the United States to victory and Native Americans who fought for tribal rights. Abolitionists and slaveholders. Athletes, musicians, movie stars and religious figures, not all of whom were American.
President Trump has wanted to build a Garden of Heroes in Washington, D.C., since the tail end of his first term. Now, he’s planning on doing it.
Here’s a look at more than 200 U.S. founders, politicians, civil rights leaders, artists and others the White House is considering for the garden, according to an executive order signed by the president and the committee organizing the 250th celebration of American independence.
Samuel Adams, founding father who organized the Boston Tea Party
Crispus Attucks, a Black and Native American sailor who was the first person killed in the Boston Massacre, a galvanizing event before the Revolutionary War
William Bradford, Plymouth Colony governor who came to North America on the Mayflower
Charles Carroll, founding father from Maryland
Benjamin Franklin, founding father and inventor
Bernardo de Gálvez, Spanish colonial governor who aided the colonists during the Revolutionary War
Nathanael Greene, Revolutionary War general
Alexander Hamilton, founding father and primary author of the Federalist Papers
Nathan Hale, American spy during the Revolutionary War who was captured and executed by the British
Patrick Henry, founding father from Virginia known for a saying attributed to him: “Give me liberty, or give me death!”
Henry Knox, Revolutionary War general and first secretary of war
Tadeusz Kościuszko, Polish general who fought in the American Revolutionary War
John Jay, founding father and first chief justice of the Supreme Court
William Penn, Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania
Paul Revere, revolutionary figure who warned colonists in Massachusetts Bay that the British were coming
Betsy Ross, seamstress who made flags for the Pennsylvania navy
Caesar Rodney, founding father who cast the deciding vote for Delaware in favor of independence
Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island and advocate for the separation of church and state
John Winthrop, a founding father of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who envisioned America as a “city upon a hill”
John Adams, founding father and second president of the United States
Grover Cleveland, first U.S. president to serve nonconsecutive terms
Calvin Coolidge, 30th U.S. president, who advocated laissez-faire economics in the Roaring Twenties
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th U.S. president and supreme commander of the Allied Forces in Europe in World War II
Ulysses S. Grant, 18th U.S. president who led the Union Army to victory in the Civil War
Andrew Jackson, seventh U.S. president whose Indian Removal Act forcibly displaced tens of thousands of Native Americans, many of whom died in the Trail of Tears march
Thomas Jefferson, founding father, third U.S. president and primary author of the Declaration of Independence, who enslaved hundreds in his lifetime
John F. Kennedy, 35th U.S. president who was assassinated in 1963
Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. president who held the country together through the Civil War and signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which abolished slavery
Dolley Madison, first lady and wife of James Madison; saved a George Washington painting from the White House during the War of 1812
James Madison, founding father, fourth U.S. president and primary author of the Constitution and Bill of Rights
William McKinley, 25th U.S. president, who led the country to victory in the Spanish-American War and imposed protective tariffs
Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wife who advocated civil rights and women’s rights
Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd U.S. president who helped the United States exit the Great Depression and led the country through most of World War II
Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. president, progressive reformer, conservationist and Nobel Peace laureate
William Howard Taft, 27th U.S. president and the 10th Supreme Court chief justice, the only person to hold both offices
Harry S. Truman, 33rd U.S. president who ordered the use of the atomic bomb to bring an end to World War II and established NATO
George Washington, Revolutionary War leader and first U.S. president
Henry Clay, Kentucky lawmaker known as the “Great Compromiser,” including for pacts forged between the North and South over slavery
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, liberal Supreme Court justice and advocate of gender equality
Barry Goldwater, Republican presidential nominee and father of the modern conservative movement
Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii lawmaker who was the first Japanese American to serve in Congress
Robert H. Jackson, Supreme Court justice who led the U.S. prosecution of the Nazis at the Nuremberg trial
Barbara Jordan, Texas lawmaker and the first Black woman elected to Congress from the South
Jeane Kirkpatrick, foreign policy adviser in the Reagan administration who supported anti-communist authoritarian regimes that aligned with the U.S.
Clare Boothe Luce, politician, writer and diplomat and conservative intellectual
Jeannette Rankin, first woman elected to Congress
Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman to serve in both the House and the Senate and an outspoken critic of McCarthyism
Thurgood Marshall, civil rights lawyer and the first African American Supreme Court justice
William Rehnquist, Supreme Court chief justice who presided over a resurgence in judicial conservatism
Antonin Scalia, conservative Supreme Court justice and a leading proponent of originalism
Lorenzo de Zavala, helped Texas secure its independence from Mexico and served as the vice president of the Republic of Texas
John Carroll, nation’s first Catholic bishop and the founder of Georgetown University
Katharine Drexel, Catholic religious leader who served Black and Native American communities
Jonathan Edwards, theologian who helped shape American evangelism and a leader during the First Great Awakening
Billy Graham, evangelical preacher
Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk who wrote “The Seven Storey Mountain”
John Neumann, a Bishop of Philadelphia and the first American male to be canonized
Junípero Serra, a Spanish Franciscan friar who helped establish the first nine Spanish missions in California
Elizabeth Ann Seton, founded Catholic schools in the United States and was the first native-born U.S. citizen to be canonized
Fulton J. Sheen, the Bishop of Rochester and host of the TV show “Life is Worth Living”
Kateri Tekakwitha, considered the first Native American saint
Augustus Tolton, the first Black Catholic priest in the United States
Susan B. Anthony, abolitionist, suffragist and women’s rights activist
Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross
Sitting Bull, symbol of Native American resistance movement who defeated the U.S. military in the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876
Red Cloud, Oglala Lakota leader who won the Red Cloud’s War against the U.S. government
Dorothy Day, journalist, social activist, self-described Christian anarchist and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement
Frederick Douglass, abolitionist and orator who was considered the most photographed American in the 19th century
Mary Fields, first African American mail carrier
Samuel Gompers, labor leader who founded the American Federation of Labor
Medgar Evers, civil rights activist and first N.A.A.C.P. field secretary in Mississippi
Nellie Gray, anti-abortion activist who founded the March for Life
Julia Ward Howe, abolitionist and suffragist who wrote the “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and the “Mother’s Day Proclamation”
Chief Joseph, Nez Perce leader who fought against relocation to reservations and was an advocate for Native American rights
Helen Keller, activist for disability rights who was deaf and blind
Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader who promoted nonviolent protest against racist policies and gave the “I Have a Dream” speech
Coretta Scott King, civil rights leader and Martin Luther King Jr.’s wife
Lucretia Mott, abolitionist and suffragist who co-organized the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention
John Muir, conservationist who is considered the father of the National Parks
Edward R. Murrow, broadcast journalist and war correspondent who reported from London for CBS during World War II
Rosa Parks, civil rights activist whose arrest spurred the Montgomery bus boycott
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, suffragist who helped organize the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention
Anne Sullivan, teacher who instructed Helen Keller
Tecumseh, a Shawnee leader who organized Native American tribes to resist U.S. expansion into the Northwest Territory
Jefferson Thomas, one of the Little Rock Nine, the first Black students to attend Central High School in Arkansas
Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist and suffragist who was born a slave and escaped to freedom
Harriet Tubman, an abolitionist who helped slaves escape to freedom on the underground railroad
C. T. Vivian, civil rights activist, minister and Martin Luther King Jr. ally
Booker T. Washington, African American educator who founded what is today Tuskegee University
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, African American journalist who exposed racial violence and co-founded the N.A.A.C.P.
Ansel Adams, photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white landscape photos
Hannah Arendt, Jewish philosopher known for writing on totalitarianism
John James Audubon, naturalist whose paintings were collected in “The Birds of America”
William F. Buckley Jr., public intellectual who helped shape the modern conservative movement
Julia Child, chef and cookbook author who introduced French cuisine to the United States
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), author known for his books “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”
James Fenimore Cooper, author known for “The Last of the Mohicans”
Emily Dickinson, prolific and influential poet
Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate in economics, founder of monetarism and free market advocate
Cass Gilbert, architect who designed the Woolworth building and the Supreme Court building
Ralph Waldo Emerson, intellectual who led the Transcendentalist movement and wrote essays such as “Self-Reliance” and “Nature”
Robert Frost, poet known for works including “The Road Not Taken”
Theodor Seuss Geisel, children’s author known as Dr. Seuss
Ernest Hemingway, author known for books including “The Old Man and the Sea” and “A Farewell to Arms”
Francis Scott Key, wrote the poem that became the American national anthem
Russell Kirk, conservative political philosopher
Harper Lee, author who won the Pulitzer Prize for “To Kill a Mockingbird”
Pierre Charles L’Enfant, city planner who designed Washington, D.C.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet known for “Paul Revere’s Ride”
Herman Melville, author who wrote “Moby Dick”
Charles Willson Peale, artist who painted revolutionary figures
Edgar Allan Poe, poet known for works such as “The Raven”
John Russell Pope, architect who designed public buildings in Washington, including the Jefferson Memorial and the National Archives Building
Henry Hobson Richardson, architect known for buildings like the Trinity Church in Boston
Norman Rockwell, painter who captured American culture in his Saturday Evening Post cover illustrations
John Singer Sargent, painter who was highly sought after for his Gilded Age portraits
Harriet Beecher Stowe, author and abolitionist who wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
Gilbert Stuart, painter known for his unfinished George Washington portrait that served as a model for the dollar-bill engraving
Henry David Thoreau, writer and naturalist who wrote “Walden”
Thomas Ustick Walter, architect who designed additions to the U.S. Capitol building, including the central dome
Phillis Wheatley, considered the first African American woman to publish a poetry book
Walt Whitman, poet whose collection “Leaves of Grass” he expanded and revised until his death in 1892
Laura Ingalls Wilder, author known for her “Little House on the Prairie” children book series
Frank Lloyd Wright, architect who designed hundreds of buildings over his career
Muhammad Ali, three-time world heavyweight boxing champion
Louis Armstrong, decorated jazz trumpeter and singer
Lauren Bacall, Hollywood actress and Broadway star
Ingrid Bergman, Swedish award-winning actress who starred in “Casablanca”
Irving Berlin, composer featured extensively in the “Great American Songbook” canon
Humphrey Bogart, star in “Casablanca” and “The Maltese Falcon”
Herb Brooks, coached the U.S. men’s hockey team to gold in the 1980 Olympics, including an upset of the Soviets in the “Miracle on Ice”
Kobe Bryant, five-time NBA champion with the Los Angeles Lakers
Frank Capra, director of “It’s a Wonderful Life”
Johnny Cash, country-rock singer-songwriter known for songs including “I Walk the Line” and “Man in Black”
Ray Charles, singer, songwriter and pianist known as “the Genius of Soul”
Roberto Clemente, Puerto Rican baseball Hall of Famer who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates
William F. Cody (“Buffalo Bill”), frontiersman who created the “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” show
Nat King Cole, singer known for songs including “Unforgettable”
Miles Davis, jazz trumpeter known for albums including “Kind of Blue”
Walt Disney, co-founder of the Walt Disney Company and co-creator of Mickey Mouse
Duke Ellington, jazz pianist and an originator of “big band” jazz
Aretha Franklin, singer-songwriter and activist known as the “Queen of Soul”
Lou Gehrig, baseball player for the New York Yankees who died of A.L.S.
Woody Guthrie, singer-songwriter and folk musician who wrote “This Land Is Your Land” and anticapitalist protest songs
Charlton Heston, actor who starred in “The Ten Commandments” and “Planet of the Apes”
Alfred Hitchcock, director known for films like “Vertigo” and “Psycho”
Billie Holiday, jazz singer
Bob Hope, entertainer who regularly performed for U.S. soldiers
Whitney Houston, singer known for hits including “I Will Always Love You”
Elia Kazan, film and theater director who won three Tonys and two Oscars and cooperated with the McCarthy anti-communism inquiry into Hollywood
Vince Lombardi, football coach for the Green Bay Packers who won the first two Super Bowls
Annie Oakley, sharpshooter who performed in the “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” show
Jesse Owens, Black track and field star who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics
Elvis Presley, singer and actor known as the “King of Rock and Roll”
Jackie Robinson, first African American to play in Major League Baseball
Babe Ruth, baseball legend who won seven World Series with the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees
Frank Sinatra, singer and actor known for songs including “Theme from New York, New York,” and “Fly Me to the Moon”
Bessie Smith, African American blues singer known as “Empress of the Blues”
James Stewart, actor known for his roles in “The Philadelphia Story” and “It’s a Wonderful Life”
Maria Tallchief, Osage Nation member who was America’s first major prima ballerina
Shirley Temple, renowned child actor during the Great Depression
Jim Thorpe, first Native American to win a gold medal for the U.S. at the Olympics
Alex Trebek, host of “Jeopardy!”
John Wayne, American actor who starred predominantly in war movies and Westerns, including “Stagecoach” and “True Grit”
Cy Young, hall-of-fame baseball pitcher with more wins than any other pitcher in history
Neil Armstrong, first person to walk on the moon
Luis Walter Alvarez, Nobel laureate in physics for discovering resonance states
Alexander Graham Bell, credited with inventing the telephone
Daniel Boone, frontiersman who explored and helped settle Kentucky
Norman Borlaug, plant scientist and Nobel Peace laureate who helped increase agricultural production
George Washington Carver, African American agricultural scientist and proponent of the peanut
Johnny Chapman (“Johnny Appleseed”), pioneer who brought apple trees to the American frontier
William Clark, a leader of the Lewis and Clark expedition
Samuel Colt, inventor of an early revolver pistol model
Christopher Columbus, Italian explorer who ushered in European colonization of the Americas
Amelia Earhart, first woman to fly across the Atlantic
Thomas Edison, inventor of the incandescent lightbulb
Albert Einstein, physicist who developed the theory of relativity
John Glenn, first American to orbit the Earth
Grace Hopper, mathematician and a rear admiral in the navy who helped develop modern computing
Edwin Hubble, astronomer who proved there were other galaxies beyond the Milky Way
Mary Jackson, first Black female engineer at NASA
Katherine Johnson, a “human computer” at NASA who helped put an astronaut in orbit and on the moon
Meriwether Lewis, a leader of the Lewis and Clark expedition
William Mayo, physician and surgeon who helped establish the nonprofit Mayo Clinic in Minnesota
Christa McAuliffe, teacher and astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
Louise McManus, the first nurse to receive a Ph.D. in the field and a leader in medical education
Maria Mitchell, the first widely recognized female astronomer in the United States and the discoverer of the Miss Mitchell’s Comet
Samuel Morse, a developer of the electrical telegraph and Morse code
John von Neumann, a polymath who developed game theory, the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics and helped develop computer architecture
Walter Reed, Army physician who helped discover the cause of yellow fever
Sally Ride, first American woman in space
Sacagawea, Native American who helped the Lewis and Clark expedition
Jonas Salk, virologist who developed the first successful polio vaccines
Alan Shepard, first American astronaut to travel to space and fifth person to walk on the moon
Nikola Tesla, engineer and inventor who made advancements in electricity
Dorothy Vaughan, the first African American female manager at NASA
Orville Wright and his brother Wilbur, considered the first to successfully build and fly a motor-operated airplane
Todd Beamer, 9/11 victim who tried to regain control of United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania
Roy Perez Benavidez, decorated soldier who served in the Vietnam War
Joshua Chamberlain, professor and governor of Maine remembered for heroics at the Battle of Gettysburg
Whittaker Chambers, American-born Soviet spy who defected and testified in support of anti-communist investigations
Gordon Chung-Hoon, Navy admiral during World War II and the first Asian American flag officer
Davy Crockett, politician and frontiersman who died at the Battle of the Alamo
Benjamin O. Davis Jr., first African American general officer in the U.S. Air Force and leader of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II
Joseph H. De Castro, first Hispanic American awarded the Medal of Honor for his valor during Pickett’s Charge in the Battle of Gettysburg
William Donovan (“Wild Bill”), founded the C.I.A.’s precursor during World War II
Jimmy Doolittle, Air Force pilot who led the Doolittle raid on Tokyo in 1942
Desmond Doss, a military medic during World War II who refused to carry a gun and is credited with saving 75 lives
David Farragut, Union navy admiral during the Civil War
George Fox, minister and one of the four chaplains who sacrificed himself to save troops on a sinking ship during World War II
Marquis de Lafayette, French military officer who assisted the Colonies in the Revolutionary War
Gabby Gabreski, Air Force ace in World War II and the Korean War
Alexander Goode, rabbi one of the four chaplains who sacrificed himself to save troops on a sinking ship during World War II
Carl Nelson Gorman, Native American who served as a Navajo code talker during World War II
William Frederick Halsey, Jr., Navy five-star admiral who served in the Pacific during World War II
Ira Hayes, Native American who served as a Marine during World War II and helped raise the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima
Hans Christian Heg, abolitionist who served as a colonel in the Union army during the Civil War
Sam Houston, general and politician who was a leader in the Texas Revolution
Douglas MacArthur, five-star general who led the allied forces in the Southwest Pacific front during World War II and oversaw the occupation of Japan after the war
George C. Marshall, military leader and secretary of state who created the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II
William Mitchell, considered the father of the U.S. Air Force
Audie Murphy, one of the most decorated American soldiers in World War II
George S. Patton Jr., commander in World War II who was known as “Old Blood and Guts”
Oliver Hazard Perry, navy officer who defeated the British in Lake Erie during the War of 1812
John J. Pershing, army general who led the American Expeditionary Force during World War I
Clark Poling, minister and one of four chaplains who sacrificed themselves to save troops on a sinking ship during World War II
Hyman G. Rickover, navy admiral who led effort to develop nuclear-powered fleet
Matthew Ridgway, military commander who served in Europe and Korea
Norman Schwarzkopf, army general who commanded U.S. forces during the 1991 Gulf War
Robert Gould Shaw, Union officer who commanded the first official all-black regiment in the Civil War
Maxwell Taylor, army officer who led the 101st Airborne Division “Screaming Eagles” in World War II and later served as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
John P. Washington, priest and one of the four chaplains who sacrificed himself to save troops on a sinking ship during World War II
Alvin C. York, awarded the Medal of Honor in World War I for capturing over 130 German soldiers
Andrew Carnegie, steel industrialist and philanthropist
Herbert Henry Dow, chemical industrialist and founder of Dow Chemicals
Peter Drucker, management consultant credited with founding modern management
Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
Johns Hopkins, millionaire investor who founded Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Hospital
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple
George P. Mitchell, Texas businessman known as the “father of fracking”
Sam Walton, businessman and a founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club
Photo credits: Hulton Archive, via Getty Images (John Adams); Benjamin F. Powelson, via Library of Congress (Harriet Tubman); Associated Press (Albert Einstein); Edward S. Curtis, via Library of Congress (Chief Joseph); Jim Wilson/The New York Times (Steve Jobs); Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress (Susan B. Anthony); William Gottlieb/Redferns, via Getty Images (Louis Armstrong); Bettmann Archive, via Getty Images (George S. Patton Jr., Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)); Ernie Sisto/The New York Times (Muhammad Ali); E. Purdy/Underwood Archives, via Getty Images (Clara Barton) and U.S. Army (Roy Benavidez)
Source:
www.nytimes.com
