(Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP)
RICHMOND, Va., June 11, 2020 (AP) — 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.
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 Davis monument was a few blocks away from a 12-ton, 61-foot-high equestrian statue of the most revered Confederate of them all, Gen. Robert E. Lee, that the state of Virginia is trying to take down.
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney had recently announced he would introduce an ordinance in July to remove the Davis monument and statues of other Confederates, including Gens.
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.
