The Diplomat
The White House Historical Association has joined with U.S. embassies and consulates around the world, including the U.S. Embassy in Spain, for the third annual Presidents’ Day wreath-laying ceremony. Wreaths have been laid at presidential statues and monuments in several countries to honour the history of U.S. presidents around the world and to highlight the eloquent leadership that each memorial represents.
In Spain, tribute has been paid to John Adams, a leading political philosopher who served as the second President of the United States (1797-1801), in Bilbao, at the site where a statue was erected in his honour on the city’s Gran Vía in 2011. Adams travelled through the Basque Country in January 1780, during the American War of Independence, before arriving in France to negotiate an alliance with the court of Louis XVI.
The bust, created by sculptor Lourdes Umerez, is a tribute to Adams and his observations of his journey through the Basque Country and the local system of government, which he recorded in his diaries and later works. Members of the National Association of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a non-profit, non-political volunteer women’s organisation dedicated to preserving American history, have participated in the ceremony and commemoration of history.
The tradition began in 2022 when the Association worked with the U.S. Consulate in Edinburgh, Scotland, to lay a wreath at the statue of Abraham Lincoln. The wreath-laying tradition has spread to countries such as the United Kingdom, Argentina, Ireland, Canada, Mexico and now Spain, among others.
