In photos: 6 confederate statues come down, here are more  that may be next
16 August 2017, 18:35 IST

In photos: 6 confederate statues come down, here are more that may be next

Undeterred by the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, states and cities have sped up their plans to remove Confederate monuments from public places.

Violence erupted over the weekend after city officials voted for the removal of a statue of confederate general Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville. On Friday evening, marchers descended on the University of Virginia campus carrying torches. These marchers yelled white pride slogans like "blood and soil" and "white lives matter".

The following day, 12 August, a "United to Right" rally took place. The rally was organized by a former journalist and a member of the ultra-nationalist group Proud Boys, Jason Kessler. The rally was one of the largest white supremacist events in recent times.

These protesters clashed with counter-demonstrators. The protests got so out of hand that a state of emergency was declared in Charlottesville. During the counter-protests, a car rammed into protesters, killing one person and injuring a dozen others.

While the Robert E. Lee statue still stands, three other confederate statues have been taken down. The first was in Gainesville, Florida. Here, the Daughters of the Confederacy removed the statue of a Confederate soldier known as 'Old Joe'. The second was in Durham, North Carolina, where protesters pulled down a Confederate monument using just a rope. The latest were the four statues - Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson; Confederate soldiers and sailors; the women of the Confederacy; and Roger Taney in Baltimore that were removed days after a city council vote.

As the anti-confederate movement gains prominence, many more of these statues are expected to come down.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan joined the growing list of officials seeking the removal of these statues. Hogan called for the statehouse statue of US Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney to be taken down. Taney had written the 1857 Dred Scott decision which further bolstered slavery. Many consider it the US Supreme Court's worst-ever decision.

As of April of 2017, at least 60 symbols of the Confederacy had been removed or renamed since 2015. This is according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups. Furthermore, 718 Confederate monuments and statues remain across the country. Nearly 300 of them are in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia.

These are some of the monuments that may soon be taken down.

Read More