Protesters in the United States tore down a statue of the Confederate President Jefferson Davis and beheaded a marble monument of Christopher Columbus as unrest over the killing of George Floyd continued.
President Davis, from Mississippi, was president of the Confederate States of America for the duration of the American Civil War.
Five other statues were also pulled down on Wednesday night as anger transform from mass demonstrations and rioting to attacks on civil war monuments across the United States, reopening an old front in America’s culture war.
The statue in the former capital of the Confederacy fell shortly before 11 p.m., news outlets reported.
The Richmond police were on the scene and videos on social media showed the monument being towed away as a crowd cheered.
In Portsmouth, protestors beheaded and then pulled down four statues that were part of a Confederate monument today.
Efforts to tear one of the statues down began around 8:20 p.m., but the rope they were using snapped. The Virginian-Pilot reported.
The crowd was frustrated by the Portsmouth City Council’s decision to put off moving the monument. They switched to throwing bricks from the post that held the plaque they had pulled down as they initially worked to bring down the statue.
The Pilot reports that they then started to dismantle the monument one piece at a time as a marching band played in the streets and other protesters danced.
A flag tied to the monument was lit on fire, and the flames burned briefly at the base of one of the statues.
A statue of Christopher Columbus in Richmond was torn down by protesters, set on fire and then submerged into a lake yesterday. News outlets reported the figure was toppled less than two hours after protesters gathered in the city’s Byrd Park chanting for the statue to be taken down.
