US cities rush to take down Confederate monuments after Charlottesville

In the fallout from the violent rally in Charlottesville last weekend, a renewed sense of urgency to remove Confederate monuments has taken hold in towns and municipalities across the country.

Under the cover of darkness, workers in Baltimore removed four statues memorialising Confederate figures, after the city council voted unanimously to make moves immediately. Statues in Lexington, Kentucky, are set to be taken down as well, pending approval from a state historical board. A woman in Durham, North Carolina was recently arrested for allegedly tearing down a statue there.

“We cannot continue to glorify a war against the United States of America fought in the defence of slavery,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper later wrote in a post on Medium in what was a light condemnation of the events in Durham, and a call for official action. “These monuments should come down.”

The movement to take down the statues — which some argue represent a violent and racist history, while others say are simply a tribute to Southern heritage — echoes the zeitgeist seen in 2015, after nine black churchgoers were murdered in cold blood by a white supremacist hoping to start a race war. Photographs of the killer showed him posing with the Confederate flag, sparking outrage that led to efforts across the South to remove that flag from public grounds. The recent rally in support of keeping a Confederate monument also drew blood, and now the rush to remove the monuments is the topic of discussion in many communities with similar statues or plaques.

The debate over Confederate monuments isn’t exactly new, however. Public displays honouring Confederate figures and ideas can be seen all across the United States, and many localities have been considering removal for a long time.

There were some victories for the anti-Confederate monument camp in the absence of national tragedy, too: New Orleans removed four statues earlier this year, for example. Activists in Hollywood, Florida, tell The Independent that their years-long effort to rename streets honouring Confederate figures is on the verge of succeeding.

But, the very fact that this is being debated after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville —ostensibly to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee — turned terribly wrong, shows how polarising the issue can be. Tensions were so high in Charlottesville that the planned rally needed to be disbursed almost immediately after its scheduled starting time, but clashes continued between demonstrators and counter protesters. That violence culminated in the death of a woman after a white supremacist allegedly drove his car through a crowd.

There are more than 1,500 Confederate monuments or symbols on public grounds around the country, according to the Southern Poverty Law Centre. That includes more than 700 monuments, and more than 100 public schools named after Confederate generals.