Oswald Clark:
Nellie Gray, president of the March for Life Fund, at the March for Life rally near the White House in 2004
As part of the celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of American independence on July 4, 2026, President Donald Trump has ordered the creation of a National Garden of American Heroes which will feature at least 244 significant figures from U.S. history such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry Ford. Among the names listed is March for Life foundress Nellie Gray, who started the march in Washington on the first anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the U.S.
Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 29, establishing a commission to oversee the semi-quincentennial ratification of the Declaration of Independence, calling for a “grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion.” The commission overseeing the festivities will be called Task Force 250. The order states the aim of the task force is to “provide a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion of the 250th anniversary of American independence.”
As part of the celebration, Trump will bring back the National Garden of American Heroes, which he established in his first term of president but which was overturned by Joe Biden when he became president in 2021. The order also calls for additional protections for national monuments from vandals.
The Federalist’s Jarrett Stepman reported, “These moves undoubtedly come in response to the Left’s war on history and attempts during the last phase of the first Trump term and the four years of Biden’s presidency to change, warp, and outright purge any celebration of America’s past from public spaces.”
The National Garden of American Heroes, which will honour the likes of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry Ford, was a project during the first Trump term to recognize “historically significant Americans for inclusion,” and there were 244 honorees listed. The new executive order calls for that number to be increased to 250. With no work being done on the Garden during the Biden presidency, the project is unlikely to conclude in time for the semi-quincentennial celebrations as originally hoped for so the order calls for it to be completed “as expeditiously as possible.”
Nellie Gray worked in government and practiced law before Roe v. Wade, but she dedicated herself to the pro-life cause after the Supreme Court ruled there was a “right to abortion.” She organized the mass protest against the decision to mark the anniversary of the decision. Tim Soccoccia, a board member of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, told National Review in 2012, when “a small group of concerned citizens gathered in Nellie Gray’s dining room in 1973 to discuss the problem of abortion, no one imagined the conversation would mark the start of the most significant pro-life event in the United States, the March for Life.” That dining room meeting led to the first march the following year, an event that is going strong 41 years later.
That first march attracted 20,000 people and would eventually grow to an estimated 250,000-400,000 people annually. Her annual march inspired other marches throughout the United States and the world. She told then-Campaign Life Coalition national president Jim Hughes to hold a National March for Life in Canada, which CLC began doing in 1997.
Hughes told The Interim that Gray, who died in 2012 at the age of 88, lived by the motto of “no exceptions, no compromise,” with her insistence that every preborn child be protected in law.
New York Times language columnist William Safire credited Gray with popularizing the term “pro-life” over “anti-abortion” and “right-to-life,” but said her efforts (in the 1970s) to call the child in utero “preborn” rather than “unborn” did not have the same success at the time he wrote his column (in 1979).
While some scholars dispute it, pro-lifers note that early feminists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who are also to be memorialized, objected to abortion. Some feminists today say that Anthony and Stanton were merely reflecting the general opinion at the time when they expressed pro-life sentiments, while others deny it altogether. Today, there is a U.S. pro-life group named after Anthony, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
In addition to honouring Founding Fathers, presidents, politicians, supreme court justices, important soldiers and generals, and significant native leaders, the National Garden of American Heroes will also recognize conservative and libertarian icons such as William Buckley (founder of National Review), economist Milton Friedman, author Whittaker Chambers, essayist and historian of ideas Russell Kirk.
The Garden will also memorialize philanthropists, scientists, inventors, mathematicians, athletes, entertainers, religious leaders, business titans, authors and poets, and activists.
Not all honourees are American. Game show host Alex Trebek was born in Canada and Alexander Graham Bell was born in Scotland.
