Funkstown – Mexican Hero Benito Juarez in Foggy Bottom

By Frank Leone

The western end of Foggy Bottom’s Avenue of the Americas (Virginia Avenue) is anchored by a statue of Mexican patriot Benito Juarez, “the father of modern Mexico.” Juarez, the only Mexican president of indigenous descent, presided over the country during a difficult period of ideological armed conflict and French invasion (1858-1872). He was known for his honesty, integrity, and dedication to democracy and rule of law, as well as commitment to education and equal opportunity for all people. Juarez is also the subject of an Arts in Foggy Bottom Biennial installation “La Casa de Benito,” featuring him riding (Albrecht Durer’s/Eugene Ionesco’s) (fascist) Rhinoceros. Visit both locations!

Statue of President Benito Juarez - His ideals are carved at the base: “Respect for the rights of others is peace / El respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz.” (F. Leone, April 2022)

The Juarez statue was erected in 1969 in return for a statue of Abraham Lincoln installed in a Mexico City Park in 1966 honoring 150 years of Mexican independence (in 1960). The 12-foot fall bronze Juarez statue (on an 11-foot high granite base) stands next to the Watergate and the entrance to the Kennedy Center (Virginia and New Hampshire Avenues). Soil from San Pablo Guelatao, the indigenous Zapotec village where Juarez was born, is stored in an urn hidden beneath the structure.

Juarez (1806-1872), an orphan, was raised by his uncle and as a boy worked as a shepherd. When he was twelve, he fled to the state capital of Oaxaca to study and became a lawyer and professor.  After serving in local and state office, he served as governor of the State of Oaxaca from 1847 to 1853 and pushed administrative, educational, and agricultural reforms. A leader of the Liberal Party, he was banished by Conservative President Antonia Lopez de Santa Anna and lived in New Orleans from 1853-1855. In 1855, Santa Anna was overthrown, and Juarez became Justice Minister where he supported the La Reforma movement that sought to take land and powers from the Catholic Church and the military and give it to the people.

As President, he oversaw the implementation of the 1857 Mexican Constitution. His tenure saw the War of the Reform, a civil war (1857-1860) between his Liberals and Conservatives. The Liberals won, but the Conservatives supported a French invasion (1861-1867), while the United State was otherwise occupied by its Civil War. Although the Mexicans defeated a stronger French Army at the first battle of Puebla (1862, memorialized as Cinco De Mayo), the French ultimately controlled much of the country. French Emperor Napoleon III installed Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand Maximillian (young brother of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph) as Emperor of Mexico. Juarez established a government in exile in northern Mexico.  His wife Margarita and children sought refuge in Washington, D.C., where she was a guest of honor at a White House dinner, and in New York. By 1866, Napoleon III withdrew French troops and Maximillian was captured and executed in 1867. Juarez was reelected as President in 1871 but died in 1872.

“La Casa De Benito” is located in the front yard of the historic Fitzgerald House, 842/844 New Hampshire Avenue, long home of a family-owned grocery store. The family lived in the house above the store. (F. Leone, July 2025)  Frank Leone and artist Courtney Applequist at Courtney’s talk in August 2025 - Support the artists with very cool T-shirts and bags here.

“La Casa de Benito” is the third “Nomadic House Installation” by the Ice Box Collective. Like all great art, the work speaks for itself visually. According to the artists: “Juarez's historical transcendence conveys the idea of the ‘other or the stranger’-recurrent iconography of the Theater of the Absurd- as he is the sole Indigenous president in Mexican history, a complex figure homologous to Abraham Lincoln in the USA….The installation is dominated by a significant Pink Rhino character, a reference to Romanian-French playwriter Eugène Ionesco's ‘The Rhinoceros.’ As an absurd Equestrian figure riding the Rhino holding the eye (understanding and truth), Benito Juarez pointed the viewer toward George Washington, another equestrian statue nearby, as a vital reminder to observe history critically.” You can hear the artists discuss the work here with more details at their site. The work, and the eleven other Arts in Foggy Bottom exhibits, are on view until October 25, 2025.

Sources:  R. Conrad Stein, The Story of Mexico: Benito Juarez and the French Intervention, Morgan-Reynolds, 2008; Eugene Ionesco, Rhinoceros and Other Plays, Grove Press, 1960; National Park Service, Benito Pablo Juarez Memorial;  Leonard Gordon, “Lincoln and Juárez—A Brief Reassessment of Their Relationship,” Hispanic American Historical Review (1968) 48 (1): 75–8; FBA History Project Walking Tours;  FBA History Project; 2025 Arts in Foggy Bottom.

Happy National Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15 - Oct 15, 2025)!  See our Funkstown posts on the Foggy Bottom’s  Avenue of the Americas, U.S. Revolutionary War Spanish Hero Galvez, and the Organization of American States Building.