Some demonstrators said they believed protesters hoped to tear the statue down. What was happening during these two periods? … Wolverine Captured on Yellowstone Trail Cameras for the First Time, Yes, Giant Technicolor Squirrels Actually Roam the Forests of Southern India, Caligula's Gardens, Long Hidden Beneath Italian Apartment Building, to Go on View, The Best Board Games of the Ancient World, The Rise and Fall of America's Lesbian Bars, Monument to Coretta Scott and MLK Is Coming to Boston, City Where They Met, 3-D Reconstruction of Fossil Reveals Secret Sex Life of Dinosaurs, Ancient Insect Genitals Found in 50-Million-Year-Old Fossil, The History Behind Amazon's 'One Night in Miami', Meet Joseph Rainey, the First Black Congressman, The State of American Craft Has Never Been Stronger. In the mid-1700s, they were mentioned in history books but as rather peripheral figures, not as heroes.”, Americans seeking an origin story that didn’t involve Great Britain revived Columbus’ legacy during the Revolutionary War, lionizing him to such an extent that he eventually received his own day. Why is it coming down now? The submerged statue in Virginia has been removed from Fountain Lake and taken to an undisclosed location, parks and recreation department spokeswoman Tamara Jenkins tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch. selling First Nation women and girls into sex slavery. Alabama's Attorney-General Steve Marshall filed a lawsuit against the city, alleging they violated the state's law by not seeking his approval. Others may simply not want the monuments they have grown up with taken away — despite their controversial history. And symbolising that continuity of repression are the men on horses, standing tall over hundreds of American public spaces. In St. Paul, demonstrators toppled a ten-foot-tall statue that stood in front of the Minnesota state capitol. “I’m willing to take that,” Forcia tells the Star Tribune. While those publicly identifying as Neo-Nazis and white supremacists will no doubt rail against any moves to topple their Confederate heroes, it's not clear what they might do in reaction. The second statue was removed about 5:30 a.m. from Arrigo Park in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images. 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. As monuments to controversial figures face a reckoning around the world, protesters in Massachusetts, Minnesota and Virginia have targeted statues of Christopher Columbus, damaging or pulling down three in a matter of days. The statue of Christopher Columbus is seen on the ground after it was pulled down by protesters,Richmond, Virginia, U.S., June 9, 2020 Toppled: A Christopher Columbus statue … When Columbus died in 1506, he was “kind of a forgotten figure, as was John Cabot,” an explorer who also reached North America in the 1490s, University of Bristol historian Evan Jones told Smithsonian in 2015. California Do Not Sell My Info Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. But it is the Confederate symbols that are attracting the most attention. But many are not standing the test of time or changed attitudes — especially after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer last month. The group later turned their attention toward Lincoln's statue, pulling it down about eight minutes later. 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. 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. A rope was thrown around the 10ft bronze … And, during his four voyages to the Caribbean and the northern coast of South America, he enslaved and killed thousands of indigenous people. 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. 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. 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. Advertising Notice Now, their descendants and their supporters do want them gone and some are not willing to wait. In the middle of the 20th century, the civil rights movement was formed, in part, to remove those legal instruments of suppression. And why the Confederate statues should come down. 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