The protesters in the US city of Richmond, Virginia, demolished a monument erected in 1892 in honor of the artillery unit of the Confederation of the Civil War, the newspaper Washington Post reports.
About 11 pm local time (6 am Moscow time), as the newspaper notes, the demonstrators climbed onto a monument depicting an artilleryman during the Civil War and pushed it off a pedestal. It became the third monument to the Confederates, demolished by the demonstrators since the start of the protests in Richmond, which was the capital of the South.
Previously, protesters demolished a monument to the President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, and Confederate General Williams Carter Wickman. In addition, the protesters also tumbled down a monument to Christopher Columbus and threw it into the lake.
A spontaneous demolition of monuments to southerners during the Civil War began against the backdrop of protests after the death of African American George Floyd at the hands of the police across the United States. This also affected the statues of the discoverer of America, Christopher Columbus, whom left-wing activists accuse of genocide of the indigenous population of America.
During the conflict of the North and the South of 1861-1865, on the basis of slavery, some states broke away from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America (CAB). The military conflict ended with the victory of the North and the restoration of the United States within its former borders. Slaves were also freed, although the de facto position of African Americans remained unequal in many states until the 1960s.