Confederate and Columbus Statues Toppled by US Protesters
A
statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis was toppled in Richmond,
Virginia, on Wednesday night.
Elsewhere
in the city, a statue of Columbus was pulled down, set alight and thrown into a
lake a day earlier.
Anti-racism
protests have re-ignited debates over US historical monuments.
Memorials
to the Confederacy, a group of southern states that fought to keep black people
as slaves in the American Civil War of 1861-65, have been among those targeted
by demonstrators taking to the streets after the death of George Floyd in
Minneapolis police custody.
A
three-metre tall (10ft) bronze statue of Italian explorer Columbus was also
toppled in Saint Paul, Minnesota on Wednesday.
Statues
of Columbus in Boston, Massachusetts and in Miami, Florida were also
vandalised. The one in Boston, which stands on a plinth at the heart of town,
was beheaded.
Many people in the
US celebrate the memory of Columbus, who in school textbooks is credited with
discovering "the New World", the Americas, in the 15th Century.
But
Native American activists have long objected to honouring Columbus, saying that
his expeditions to the Americas led to the colonisation and genocide of their
ancestors.
The death of Mr
Floyd, whose neck was kneeled on by a police officer for nearly nine minutes,
has spurred a global protests against police brutality and racial inequalities,
led by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Many
cities and organisations have taken steps to remove Confederate symbols, which
have long stirred controversy because of their association with racism.
Last
week, for example, Virginia's Governor Ralph
Northam announced that a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee would be
removed from Richmond.
However
a judge has since granted a temporary injunction stopping the removal of the
statue.
US President Donald Trump has meanwhile rejected calls to rename
military bases named after Confederate generals, saying they remain
part of America's heritage.
He tweeted:
"The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these
Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not
even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military
Installations."
On Wednesday, Mr
Trump renewed threats to take federal action against local protesters occupying
public spaces.
In
a pointed exchange on Twitter, Mr Trump demanded that the mayor of Seattle
"take back your city" from protesters, whom he called anarchists and
domestic terrorists.
In a tweet of her own, Mayor Durkan responded that Mr Trump could make everyone safe
by going back to his White House bunker.
A similar backlash
against statues of slave owners has been seen in the UK since Mr Floyd's death.
Black
Lives Matter demonstrators tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston
and threw it into a harbour during a protest in the city of Bristol on Sunday.
On Thursday, Bristol City Council said it had retrieved the statue, which will be
taken to a secure location before becoming a museum exhibit.
Earlier
this week, a statue of noted slaveholder Robert Milligan was removed from
outside the Museum of London Docklands.
And,
during a Black Lives Matter protest in London last weekend, a statue of Sir
Winston Churchill in Parliament Square was sprayed with graffiti.
FROM .bbc.com/news/world-us-canada
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