People cheer as workers remove a Confederate monument from Decatur Square in Decatur, Georgia, on June 18, 2020. On June 30, the Boston Art Commission, supported by Mayor Martin Walsh, voted to remove the controversial statue from the park. #, The Stonewall Jackson statue is removed from Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, on July 1, 2020. Donald Trump Is Out. #, A Confederate statue is seen hanging from a street post in Raleigh, North Carolina, on June 19, 2020. The most recent is Alabama, which in 2017 passed legislation making it difficult to remove statues that had stood for more than 40 years. ... British demonstrators in Bristol tore down a bronze statue … All Rights A statue from the Howitzer Monument, erected in 1892 to commemorate a Confederate artillery unit, lies on the ground after being toppled by protesters in Richmond, Virginia, on June 17, 2020. George Floyd's image is projected on the Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia, on June 18, 2020. #. Photos of the Week: Ice Castles, Northern Lights, Inauguration Fireworks. Two years ago a commission in Richmond published its recommendations on what should be done with Monument Avenue’s five Confederate statues. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has ordered the removal of the statue, but next steps have been delayed by pending lawsuits. President Donald Trump defended the manifestly unpatriotic practice of calling military bases after vanquished rebels, tweeting that he would not countenance renaming “these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations”. A Confederate statue is seen hanging from a street post in Raleigh, North Carolina, on June 19, 2020. Collected below, images of just some of the dozens of statues that have been toppled, defaced, or slated for removal across the United States over the past month. By Martin Evans, CRIME CORRESPONDENT 7 June 2020 • 10:15pm Police in Bristol are hunting a mob who toppled a 125-year-old statue of the slave trader, Edward Colston, before dumping it … #, A caged statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis is hoisted out of the state capital in Frankfort, Kentucky, on June 13, 2020. #. A statue of Christopher Columbus, toppled by protesters, is loaded onto a truck on the grounds of the state capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota, on June 10, 2020. Their continued presence in America’s cities and towns, painful and insulting for so many, has been the subject of often ponderous debate. #, The statue of a Confederate soldier and plinth sit on a flatbed truck at the Old Capitol in Raleigh, North Carolina, on June 21, 2020. After a gunman who was fond of posing with the Confederate flag killed nine African-Americans at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, more than 100 Confederate monuments across America were taken down over the next three years. President Donald Trump criticized the Metropolitan Police Department for “not doing their job” by allowing the statue, located close to the D.C. department’s headquarters, to be torn down. June 23, 2020 5:04 AM ET. On June 6, a statue of Confederate Gen. Williams Carter Wickham was toppled by protesters. Protesters pull down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston during a Black Lives Matter protest rally on College Green, Bristol, England, Sunday June 7, 2020. A statue of the former vice president and slavery advocate John C. Calhoun is removed from the monument in his honor in Marion Square in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 24, 2020. But ways are being found around such laws. A Christopher Columbus statue is removed from Tower Grove Park in St. Louis on June 16, 2020. #, George Floyd's image is projected on the Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia, on June 18, 2020. June 22, 2020 at 7:19 p.m. UTC The United States’ frenzy of statuary iconoclasm has taken a turn into the theater of the absurd. #, In Frankfort, Kentucky, a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis is removed from the rotunda of the capitol building on June 13, 2020. Now, activists of the movement have identified 60 statues around the UK that “celebrate slavery and racism”, calling for these to also be torn down. The protest was led by Mike Forcia, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, who called the statue a symbol of genocide. We asked an art historian who studies the destruction of cultural heritage. Some went up even more recently, during the civil-rights struggle of the 1960s. Yes, really. Its proposals—to remove that of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, and put explanatory signs on the others—mirrored what protesters did within hours last week: toppling Davis and covering the rest in slogans. Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the immediate removal of all Confederate statues in the city, saying he was using his emergency powers to speed up the healing process for the former capital of the Confederacy amid weeks of protests over police brutality and racial injustice. This quickly became evident in Richmond last week. Rehearsals and preparations are underway for the upcoming inaugural ceremony of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President–elect Kamala Harris. #, A statue of Christopher Columbus lies facedown after being toppled by protesters on the grounds of the state capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota, on June 10, 2020. The mayor said all of the statues that are being removed over the next several days will be put into storage for now. People watch as protesters pull down a statue of Confederate General Albert Pike during an event to mark Juneteenth in Washington, D.C., on June 19, 2020. Confederate statues, which sentimentalise and glorify the “lost cause” of the civil war, were put up to bolster all that. #, A replica of Thomas Ball's Emancipation Memorial, erected in 1879, stands in Park Square in Boston on June 16, 2020. A vandalized statue of Christopher Columbus is seen at the Bayside Marketplace in downtown Miami after a protest against racial inequality on June 10, 2020. An unidentified man walks past a toppled statue of Charles Linn, a city founder who was in the Confederate navy, in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 1, 2020. Edward Colston’s and countless other statues have been torn down over the course of a week, with many more scheduled to be taken down in response by city officials. Monday, October 19, 2020. On June 30, the Boston Art Commission, supported by Mayor Martin Walsh, voted to remove the controversial statue from the park. Julian Hayter, a professor of history at the University of Richmond and a member of the committee that studied the fate of Monument Avenue’s bronzes, thinks it would be a “wasted opportunity” not to use them to teach Americans about the lasting effects of the Jim Crow era, perhaps by putting them in a museum or less prestigious public place, with signage explaining their history. MORE THAN 40 feet off the ground and weighing 12 tonnes, the colossal bronze statue of Robert E. Lee astride his horse that has stood on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, for 130 years was too high and heavy for protesters to topple. This occurred mainly in the United States, but also in several other countries.Some of the monuments in question had been the … Monument Avenue once epitomised racism: in the early 20th century, estate agents marketed its elegant houses as whites-only through advertisements illustrated with the statues of the Confederate leaders that dot it. Part of the 27-foot-tall monument to Confederate soldiers outside a courthouse in eastern North Carolina has been removed after local officials gave their approval. All rights reserved. I know this is hard to believe. #, A statue of Christopher Columbus rests in a shallow pond after protesters pulled it off its pedestal and dragged it across a street in Richmond, Virginia, on June 9, 2020. There doesn’t seem to be much of a standard for what statues are offensive. A statue of Jefferson Davis lies on the street after protesters pulled it down in Richmond, Virginia, on June 10, 2020. ... What’s usually not on the menu is toppling statues, ripping down signs, or burning portraits. But it seems likely that the current protests, unprecedented in their scale and, especially, in the number of white Americans who have taken part, will herald the biggest wave of removals yet. A view of the statue of Albert Pike in Washington, D.C., on June 20, 2020, the day after it was toppled. #, An unidentified man walks past a toppled statue of Charles Linn, a city founder who was in the Confederate navy, in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 1, 2020. State and local governments then began acting to remove even more Confederate statues from public places. During the civil unrest that followed the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, a number of monuments and memorials associated with racial injustice were vandalized, destroyed or removed, or commitments to remove them were announced. 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