Protesters topple Jefferson Davis statue in Virginia capital
RICHMOND, Va. — Protesters pulled down a century-old statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in the former capital of the Confederacy, adding it to the list of Old South monuments removed or damaged around the U.S. in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
The 8-foot bronze figure on Richmond’s grand Monument Avenue had been all but marked for removal by city leaders in a matter of months, but demonstrators took matters into their own hands Wednesday night, tying ropes around its legs and toppling it from its stone pedestal onto the pavement.
A crowd cheered and police looked on as the monument — installed by a Confederate heritage group in 1907 — was towed away.
There were no immediate reports of any arrests.
The toppling came on the same day NASCAR banned Confederate flags — a common sight for decades in a sport steeped in Southern tradition — at its races. Also this week, the streaming service HBO Max temporarily removed the 1939 movie “Gone With the Wind,” criticized for romanticizing slavery and the Civil War-era South, to add historical context.
In the weeks since Floyd’s death under a white Minneapolis police officer’s knee set off protests and sporadic violence across the U.S. over the treatment of black people, many Confederate monuments have been damaged or taken down, some toppled by demonstrators, others removed by local authorities.
The movement has extended around the world, with protesters decrying monuments to slave traders, imperialists and explorers, including Christopher Columbus, Cecil Rhodes and Belgium’s King Leopold II.
The spokesman for the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, B. Frank Earnest, condemned the toppling of “public works of art” and likened losing the Confederate statues to losing a family member.
Also Wednesday night, protesters in Portsmouth, Virginia, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) away, knocked the heads off the statues of four Confederates and pulled one of the statues to the ground after the City Council scheduled a hearing on the monument’s fate for the end of July. Mayor John Rowe said police didn’t intervene because that could have escalated the situation.
Supporters of Confederate monuments have argued that they are important reminders of history, while opponents contend they glorify those who made war against the U.S. to preserve slavery.