Benito Juárez Statue

Hubbard Street Pedestrian Overpass (at North Michigan Avenue), Chicago, IL 60611

Benito Juárez (1806 - 1872), a Zapotec Indian, served as Mexico’s president from 1861 to 1872. He was Mexico’s first and, to date, only Indigenous president. A contemporary of President Abraham Lincoln, Juárez led the successful war effort to end the French occupation of Mexico. He is honored with a 15-foot bronze statue sculpted by Julian Martinez installed in Chicago’s Plaza of the Americas in 1999. The statue was gifted to Chicago by the Counsel General of Mexico and replaced a 2.5 foot bust of Juárez previously installed at the same site in 1977 and gifted to the City of Chicago by then Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo. The bust is now on display at the National Museum of Mexican Art.

Additional Information

 

 

 

Chicagotlan's Organizing Committee acknowledges that Chicago is the ancestral homeland to the Anishinaabek; Niswi-mishkodewin (Council of the Three Fires): Ojibwe, Odawa, and the Potawatomi along with dozens of tribes who cultivated and molded the land to sustainably suit their needs since time immemorial. Read our full Land Acknowledgement. 

Created with NationBuilder