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A group of protesters pulled down a statue of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on Wednesday, the latest U.S. monument to be torn down as calls to remove sculptures commemorating colonizers and slavers sweep America on the back of nationwide anti-racism protests.
The 10-foot bronze statue was pulled from its granite base by several dozen people led by a Minnesota-based Native American activist outside the state Capitol, documented by news photographers and television camera operators.
Italian explorer Columbus, long hailed by school textbooks as the so-called discoverer of "The New World," is considered by many to have spurred years of genocide against indigenous groups in the Americas.
Native American activists have long objected to honoring Columbus, saying that his expeditions to the Americas led to the colonization and genocide of their ancestors.
"It was the right thing to do and it was the right time to do it," the activist, Mike Forcia said, adding he was advised by a Minnesota state trooper that he could expect to be arrested in the coming days and charged with criminal destruction. A city crew removed the statue, which was broken at the base.
According to a website for the Capitol, the monument was created by sculptor Carlo Brioschi and dedicated in 1931 as a gift to the city from Italian-Americans in Minnesota.
On the same day, police said a statue of Columbus in Boston was beheaded. The Boston statue, which stands on a plinth in the heart of town, had been controversial for years, like other Columbus statues across the U.S., and was vandalized in the past.
A jogger running past the statue on Wednesday said she approved of the decapitation.
"Coming out of the Black Lives Matter protests, I think it's a good thing to capitalize on this momentum," she told AFP, without giving her name.
"Just like black people in this country, indigenous people have also been wronged. I think this movement is pretty powerful and this is very symbolic," she added.
Dozens of American cities have over the years replaced "Columbus Day" in October, which became a federal holiday in 1937, with a day of tribute to indigenous peoples. But not Boston or New York, which have large Italian-origin communities.
Protesters also defaced a Miami statue of Columbus at a waterfront park with red paint and messages that read "Our streets," "Black Lives Matter" and "George Floyd," before police made several arrests, according to the Miami Herald newspaper.
In Virginia,
protesters used ropes to pull down a 2.44-meter statue
and then dumped it in a nearby lake on Tuesday night in Byrd Park in Richmond. It echoed an incident in Bristol, England, on Sunday when demonstrators toppled a statue of a slave trader and dumped it in a harbor during anti-racism protests.
In Washington, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Congress on Wednesday to remove from the U.S. Capitol 11 statues representing Confederate leaders and soldiers from the Civil War.
(With input from Reuters and AFP)
