A climate activist affiliated with a far-left advocacy group splattered red paint on an exhibit honoring an African-American regiment that fought during the Civil War, during a protest at the National Gallery of Art on Tuesday.
A member of the Emergency Declaration Group, a group that calls for an immediate end to fossil fuel production and reliance, vandalized a wall in the Washington, D.C., museum’s West Building gallery that houses the 54th Fog Show Memorial, officials told Fox News Digital. Using red paint, the activist wrote, “Honor them,” and explained that President Biden could honor Black Civil War soldiers by declaring a climate emergency.
“We must honor them by continuing their work,” the activist said in a statement. “So, I say that Joe Biden should declare a climate emergency in their honor because the vast majority of people who are affected by the climate emergency now and who will be harmed in the future are people who are like the world’s soldiers,” he added. Massachusetts 54.”
He added, “The 54th Battalion fought in the civil war. In the war being waged against humanity now, the impacts fall first and hardest on the most vulnerable people.” “In this undeclared war, the weapon is greenhouse gases. The children dying of drought and famine in parts of Africa today are being killed by the carbon that oil and gas executives are putting into the Earth’s atmosphere in order to make money.”
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The activist was eventually removed from the exhibit by law enforcement minutes after he vandalized the exhibit, according to video of the protest captured by independent filmmaker Ford Fisher of the independent media outlet News2Share.
Additionally, a spokesperson for the National Gallery of Art confirmed that he has been arrested and that an investigation into the matter is ongoing.
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“We can confirm that the person has been arrested, and the incident is being investigated. We can confirm that no works of art were damaged. Our staff are working hard to clean the wall with the hope of reopening the gallery on Wednesday,” the spokesperson said. Annabeth Guthrie told Fox News Digital in a statement.
The 54th Shaw Regiment Memorial Exhibit commemorates Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts, one of the first Civil War regiments of African Americans to enlist in the North, Guthrie said. The exhibit includes a list of the regiment’s soldiers killed, wounded, captured, or declared missing after the Battle of Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863.
The climate activist smeared paint on the list commemorating these soldiers.
A climate activist from the group Declaration of Emergency vandalized a Civil War memorial at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. (Courtesy of emergency declaration)
Tuesday’s protest is the latest in a long line of actions taken by left-wing climate groups in public spaces around the world. The emergency declaration focused specifically on protests in Washington, D.C., and called on the president to declare a climate emergency.
While Biden has focused much of his presidency on… Combating climate changeBut he has not yet officially declared a national emergency. Declaring a climate emergency would enable Biden to bypass Congress and take a number of regulatory steps that would not normally be permitted by the White House.
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In July 2022, after reports that the president would make such an announcement, he chose to do so Instead of issuing executive orders Addressing the “climate crisis,” but he stopped short of declaring an emergency.
“This is an emergency — an emergency — and I will look at it that way,” Biden said at an event announcing the measures. “I said last week, and I’ll say it again, loud and clear. As President, I will use my executive powers to fight climate change, and the climate crisis, absent action from Congress.”
