Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol

Eight months since Congress last broached the issue, the District is still no closer to winning itself a place in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall. And the artist who created D.C.’s sculpture of Frederick Douglass recently asked officials one more time if there’s any chance the statue could move in, only to be rebuffed once again.

Unfortunately, the answer the artist, Steven Weitzman, received was no different than before, National Journal reports. Despite another request by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities that Weitzman’s work be moved from its current perch at a D.C. government building to Statuary Hall, a spokeswoman for the Architect of the Capitol told National Journal that won’t be happening anytime soon. Statuary Hall, under current law, is open only to the states, each of which have contributed two statues of important historical figures, none of whom are black.

Weitzman’s sculpture of Douglass was first commissioned back in 2006 when District residents voted to memorialize the two figures they would most like to see enshrined in the halls of Congress. In addition to the great 19th century abolitionist and orator, Pierre L’Enfant was also selected after being rammed through by one member of the arts commission.

Since their casting, the statues of Douglass and L’Enfant have stood inside a D.C. building at 441 Fourth Street NW.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton has tried several times to introduce legislation that would have provided the District with two spots in Statuary Hall. Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) amended a 2010 attempt into a bill that would allow D.C. just one statue, but it died in the Senate.

Last October, Lungren again introduced his bill that would give the District and U.S. territories one statue apiece—giving the nation’s capital the same amount of representation as Guam (a faraway Pacific island) but less than North Dakota (underpopulated, disposable).

A famous phrase by Douglass—”Without struggle, there is no progress.”—is engraved on the base of Weitzman’s statue. Seems like there’s been plenty of struggle; still not enough, though, to find any progress. And that’s a real bummer.