And symbolising that continuity of repression are the men on horses, standing tall over hundreds of American public spaces. But it is the Confederate symbols that are attracting the most attention. And why the Confederate statues should come down. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. Bolin added, “We’re not here to hijack your movement. According to the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC), 114 Confederate symbols had been removed since the Charleston church shootings in 2015. Privacy Statement Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images. The debate over whether to keep or remove Confederate statues has simmered long before the current protests. As monuments to controversial figures face a reckoning around the world, protesters in Massachusetts, Minnesota and Virginia have targeted statues of Christopher Columbus, damaging … A large group gathered about 4:20 p.m. at Buckingham Fountain, 301 S. Columbus Dr., for a protest and moved south into Grant Park, Chicago police said. Fragments were later discovered nearby. Why? California Do Not Sell My Info Protesters surrounded the Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park Friday night, spray-painted it and tried to pull it down. "This is why they put them up in the first place; to affirm the centrality of white supremacy.". Protesters in Minnesota on Wednesday pulled down a statue of Christopher Columbus outside the State Capitol amid continuing anger over the police killing of George Floyd. Protesters try to pull down Andrew Jackson statue in Layayette Park, across from White House, June 23, 2020. But some of the protesters do not want to compromise on this issue. It turned deadly when a man allegedly accelerated his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a 32-year-old woman and leaving 19 others injured. The protesters looped a rope around the statue and pulled it to the ground. Protesters in cities around the United States have been tearing down, defacing and otherwise vandalizing statues of Christopher Columbus as an offshoot of the protests over George Floyd's death. For example, the Alabama city of Birmingham removed a Confederate monument erected in 1905 this week. Back then, during a "Unite the Right" rally, a group of white nationalists holding lit torches marched through the campus of the University of Virginia. But this time, the vandalism of these sites — including with messages to "stop white supremacy" — has brought the issue into sharp focus. Who Was Charles Curtis, the First Vice President of Color? The crowd pulled down the statue just before 9 p.m. A Christopher Columbus statue in Boston's North End was also vandalized on Tuesday evening when an unidentified perpetrator tore down the head of the monument. Keep up-to-date on: © 2021 Smithsonian Magazine. It's not just the Confederate luminaries being toppled. The demonstration began peacefully, but then protesters vandalized the Columbus statue, tore it down, and threw it into a lake in the park. A statue of Columbus was taken down in San Francisco last month because the explorer's actions "do not deserve to be venerated," city officials said, … Though Forcia tied the rope around the neck of the statue, Native women led the demonstration by pulling the rope that brought down the statue. A three-metre tall (10ft) bronze statue of Columbus … In the recent protests, some used ropes to pull down a statue of Confederate General Williams Carter Wickham that had stood in Richmond's Monroe Park since 1891. The second statue was removed about 5:30 a.m. from Arrigo Park in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood. ST. PAUL, Minn. — Protesters in Minnesota on Wednesday pulled down a statue of Christopher Columbus outside the state Capitol amid continuing anger over the death of George Floyd. Rebuilding a fairer nation built on genuine equality remains a herculean task that could take decades. "It's not just that the statues represent white supremacy, but the purpose of building the statues was the perpetuation of white supremacy," James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association, told TIME Magazine. The controversial Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park was taken down under cover of darkness early Friday, hours after Mayor Lori Lightfoot ordered its removal. At the back of everyone's minds are the images of Neo-Nazis marching in the streets in Charlottesville in 2017. (Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP: Alexa Welch Edlund) “The paradigm shift is happening and it was time.”, Theresa Machemer is a freelance writer based in Washington DC. (Both Cabot and Columbus were Italian, but the former sailed under the British flag, while the latter ventured out on Spain’s behalf.) Protesters mobilized by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police have called for the removal of statues of Columbus, Confederate figures and others. A study by the SPLC found a great number were built during the early 1900s and again in the 1950s and 60s. In Baltimore, Maryland, protesters on the Fourth of July pulled down a statue of Columbus and threw it into the city's Inner Harbor. Caribbean and the northern coast of South America, Archaeologists Unearth Egyptian Queen's Tomb, 13-Foot 'Book of the Dead' Scroll, You Can Now Explore the CIA's 'Entire' Collection of UFO Documents Online, How Wolves Are Driving Down Mountain Lion Populations. In the UK, a statue of Winston Churchill was defaced with graffiti stating “Churchill was a racist”, following Black Lives Matter protests in London this weekend. A small crowd cheered and passing cars honked as the statue came down about 3 a.m. When statues were first erected honouring Confederate generals or notable slave-owning citizens, the white population in the southern states would, by and large, have nodded with approval. At school, many of you would have been taught how Columbus "discovered" the Americas. “Both of them were largely ignored within a decade or so of their deaths. "They are a constant reminder of the dehumanisation of African Americans and the pushback against our civil and human rights," the SPLC's Lecia Brooks told the New York Times. Why Columbus, Andrew Jackson statues should remain standing. This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced. In St. Paul, demonstrators toppled a ten-foot-tall statue that stood in front of the Minnesota state capitol. As with Confederate monuments in the United States and statues of racist figures in Europe, controversy over Columbus is nothing new. This comes days after the Confederate statue of General Williams Carter Wickham was… Cookie Policy Several statues of Christopher Columbus have been attacked, decapitated, and even dumped in a lake. “This continent is built on the blood and the bones of our ancestors, but it is built off the backs and the sweat and the tears and the blood and the bones of Africans,” Vanessa Bolin, a member of the Richmond Indigenous Society, told protesters the day the Columbus statue was torn down, report Ali Sullivan and Zach Joachim for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. In St. Paul, where protesters tore Columbus’ likeness down to the sounds of “singing, drumming and joyous chants,” as Jessie Van Berkel writes for the Star Tribune, police informed American Indian Movement activist Mike Forcia that he would be charged with criminal damage to property. 17th Annual Photo Contest Finalists Announced. … Moreover, the explorer never even set foot on the North American mainland. Website: tkmach.com, Continue And, around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, police in Boston received a report that a marble statue of the Italian explorer and colonizer had lost its head. We’re here to stand in solidarity.”. Tim Walz said Thursday that he doesn’t condone protesters who tore down a statue of Christopher Columbus at the Minnesota Capitol, but that he understands why they did it. A mob toppled a statue of Charles Linn, a Confederate navy captain … Smithsonian Institution, (Photo by Parker Michels-Boyce / AFP via Getty Images). 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