Baltimore begins taking down Confederate statues

Crews began removing Baltimore’s Confederate statues early Wednesday, days after the deadly unrest in Charlottesville instigated by white nationalists rallying to defend a downtown Confederate monument.

Baltimore Mayor Catherine E. Pugh, D, on Monday announced plans to remove four Confederate statues in the city’s public spaces, which were approved by the city council that night.

Photos and video posted on social media shows crews using cranes to remove statues of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, hauled away on a flatbed truck. Statues honoring Confederate women and Roger B. Taney, the former chief justice who authored the notorious proslavery Dred Scott decision, were also removed.

Another statue to Confederate soldiers slated for removal, which was defaced with bright red paint over the weekend, also appears to be gone.

On the base of the nowempty Jackson and Lee monument are messages saying “Black lives matter” and “(Expletive) the Confederacy,” according to photos shared on Twitter.

Pugh on Monday said she was contacting contractors about removing and relocating the statues outside the city, the Baltimore Sun reported. Some members of the city Council called for the statues to be destroyed, not moved.

A commission appointed by former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake after a white supremacist killed nine African Americans in a historically black church in South Carolina recommended the removal of the Lee-Jackson monument, and signs adding historical context to two other statues.

Across the nation, Confederate monuments have come under renewed scrutiny following widespread disgust at how the statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville became a rallying point for white supremacists this year.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, R, on Tuesday announced he would support removing the statue of Taney from State House grounds. The statue had been defended byDemocrats and Republicans alike, and Hogan last year described calls to remove it as “political correctness run amok.”

The mayor of Lexington, Kentucky, is seeking approval to relocate two Confederate-era monuments in the city, citing the Charlottesville clashes for the timing of his decision. Officials in other Southern cities have been considering removal as well.

Elsewhere, activists have been pushing to bring monuments down with or without the government’s support. Awoman in NorthCarolina faces felony charges in connection with the vandalism and toppling of a monument to Confederate soldiers in Durham.

JERRY JACKSON—THE BALTIMORE SUN VIA AP A bystander takes a picture of the monument dedicated to the Confederate Women of Maryland after it was taken down early Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017, in Baltimore. Local news outlets reported that workers hauled several monuments away, days after a white nationalist rally in Virginia turned deadly.