Cities step up removal of Confederate statues

charlottesville — Undeterred by violence over the planned removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, state and city leaders across various US southern states said this week they would step up efforts to pull such monuments from public spaces.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan on Tuesday joined a growing list of officials seeking to remove statues as a national debate flared anew over whether monuments to the Confederacy are symbols of hate or heritage.

Hogan, a Republican, called for taking down a statehouse statue of US Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney, who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision affirming slavery. “While we cannot hide from our history ‘nor should we’ the time has come to make clear the difference between properly acknowledging our past and glorifying the darkest chapters of our history,” he said in a statement.

Saturday’s violence appears to have accelerated the drive to remove memorials, flags and other reminders of the Confederate cause. Since then, mayors of Baltimore and Lexington, Kentucky, said they would push ahead with plans to remove statues, while officials in Dallas; Memphis, Tennessee; and Jacksonville, Florida; announced initiatives aimed at taking down Confederate monuments.

Some opponents took matters into their own hands. Demonstrators stormed the site of a Confederate monument outside a courthouse in Durham, North Carolina, on Monday and toppled the bronze statue from its base.

Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews said that his office would seek vandalism charges against those involved. The Civil War involved 11 southern states that seceded from the Union, and most Confederate monuments are located in southern states.

The efforts by civil rights groups and others to do away with Confederate monuments gained momentum two years ago after avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine African-Americans at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. —