Before June 17, 2015, most Americans didn’t think much about the more than 700 Confederate monuments around the nation. And then Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist, massacred nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina. Roof’s actions, along with photos of him posing with the Confederate flag, led to a push to remove that symbol of white supremacy from public spaces across the South.
Soon, though, people began looking beyond the flag and focused their attention on statues and monuments to Confederate generals, soldiers, and battles, many of which were erected as Jim Crow flourished across the South and white leaders sought to re-cast the rebellious Confederacy as an honorable lot of freedom fighters and provide rallying points for the re-ascendent Ku Klux Klan. The summer of 2015 saw many debates about removing these statues, one of which led to a vote by the City Council in Charlottesville, Virginia, to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee on horseback.
That decision led white-supremacist organizers to plan a rally in support of the statue. That rally happened last weekend. The irony of the Unite the Right protest, which saw violent clashes between neo-Nazis and counterprotesters, along with one murder, is that like the Charleston massacre, it has accelerated the removal of Confederate statues across the nation. By associating their rancid ideology with centuries-old memorials, the white supremacists have ensured that these monuments will come down. In the first five days after the rally alone, nearly ten Confederate monuments have fallen. Plenty more will follow.
Here are the latest cities to remove their Confederate statues:
Annapolis, Maryland — August 18, 2017
At around 2 a.m., with dozens of onlookers watching from below, workers removed a statue of former Supreme Court justice Roger B. Taney from its perch outside the Maryland State House. The 145-year-old statue, whose removal was spurred by the events in Charlottesville, will be held in a Maryland State Archives storage facility.
Madison, Wisconsin — August 17, 2017
A plaque honoring Confederate soldiers as “unsung heroes” was removed from a city-owned cemetery in Madison a day after residents complained about it. “The Civil War was an act of insurrection and treason and a defense of the deplorable practice of slavery,” Mayor Paul Soglin said in a statement. “The monuments in question were connected to that action and we do not need them on City property.”
Franklin, Ohio — August 17, 2017
Located along Dixie Highway, a monument to Robert E. Lee was removed overnight by the city of Franklin. As local officials tell it, the monument wasn’t removed just because of what it stood for, but because of where it stood. It’s location near a highway made it a “public safety hazard,” they said.
Baltimore, Maryland — August 16, 2017
A day after the Baltimore city council voted to immediately remove four Confederate-era statues, they were removed. Three of the statues honored those who played a role in fighting for the Confederacy and one depicted former Supreme Court chief justice Roger B. Taney, the man who wrote the majority opinion in the infamous Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sandford.
Brooklyn, New York — August 16, 2017
Two plaques honoring a tree planted by Robert E. Lee on the grounds of a shuttered church were cut away by the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island.
Los Angeles, California — August 16, 2017
A six-foot memorial to Confederate soldiers was removed from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
San Diego, California — August 16, 2017
A small plaque presented to the city in 1926 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy was quietly removed from Horton Plaza.
St. Petersburg, Florida — August 15, 2017
Before local officials were even sure that it was located on public land, a plaque honoring a highway named for Stonewall Jackson was removed from the St. Pete waterfront.
Durham, North Carolina — August 15, 2017
A crowd of protesters toppled a Confederate soldier’s monument honoring “the boys who wore the gray.”
Gainesville, Florida — August 14, 2017
More than 110 years after the United Daughters of the Confederacy placed “Old Joe,” a statue of a Confederate soldier, in downtown Gainesville, the group paid for it to be relocated to a private cemetery ten miles away.
Rockville, Maryland — July 24, 2017
Nearly two years passed between the order to remove a 13-ton statue of a Confederate soldier near the local courthouse and it’s relocation. The statue’s new home? A Potomac river crossing named for Confederate Captain Elijah V. White.
Orlando, Florida — July 4, 2017
Moved once in 1917 because it was creating traffic problems, a statue of a Confederate soldier nicknamed “Johnny Reb” was moved again a century later. This time Johnny was relocated from Lake Eola Park to a section of the Greenwood Cemetery where rebel soldiers are buried.
St. Louis, Missouri — June 28, 2017
By the time the Confederate monument in St. Louis’s Forest Park was dismantled, it had become such a target for vandals that the city stopped removing spray-painted slogans from the giant structure, which depicted something called the “angel of the spirit of the Confederacy” hovering over a family sending a rebel soldier off to fight.
New Orleans, Louisiana — May 19, 2017
Nearly two years after New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu called for the removal of several Confederate statues in the city, the most prominent — the Robert E. Lee Monument in the middle of Lee Circle — was lifted away by a crane.
New Orleans, Louisiana — May 17, 2017
The General P.G.T. Beauregard Equestrian Statue, honoring the man who led the attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina, was removed.
New Orleans, Louisiana — May 11, 2017
Erected nearly 50 years after his side lost the Civil War, the Jefferson Davis Monument was removed by masked workers.
New Orleans, Louisiana — April 24, 2017
Long the subject of controversy, the Battle of Liberty Place Monument, erected in 1891, was a rallying point for racists in the city and at one point had an inscription extolling “white supremacy.” Now it’s gone.
Frederick, Maryland — August 17, 2017
A bust of former Supreme Court justice Roger B. Taney, a Maryland native, was removed from in front of the old City Hall ten years after a plaque was added to provide information about his role in the Dred Scott case.
Louisville, Kentucky — November 19, 2016
Though it never seceded from the Union, the commonwealth of Kentucky was claimed by the Confederacy and now it has more statues commemorating the rebellion than any state that didn’t secede, according to the South Poverty Law Center. One of those, on the University of Louisville campus, was removed and relocated to a small town an hour away.
Boone County, Missouri — September 24, 2015
Forty years before Dylann Roof ignited a debate over Confederate monuments, a giant rock with a small plaque commemorating Confederate soldiers from Boone County was removed from the campus the University of Missouri and relocated the local courthouse. Several months after the massacre in Charleston, it was moved again, this time a historic site commemorating a nearby Civil War battle.
Austin, Texas — August 13, 2015
The momentum to remove the nine-foot-tall, 1,200-pound statue of Jefferson Davis from the UT Austin campus began with the election of a new student-body president, but it was settled after the massacre in Charleston. More than a year after its removal, the statue returned to campus hidden away in a building where students study American history.
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