Across America And Abroad: Symbols Of White Supremacy Come Down

WAMU 88.5 | By James Morrison

Published June 10, 2020 at 2:30 PM CDT

A woman poses in front of a decapitated statue of Christopher Columbus viewed at Christopher Columbus Park in Boston Massachusetts on June 10, 2020.

Since the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, America has once again had to grapple with its racism, both present and past. The recent protests have once again surfaced the debate over removal of Confederate statues and other symbols of white supremacy.

Some government leaders have brought these monuments down quietly and in the dead of night. In other instances, it’s been community protesters who have torn Confederate generals from their pedestals, and to the cheers of a crowd.

But it’s not just happening here in the U.S.

Protesters in Europeare also toppling their symbols and monuments to colonists and slave traders.

Can racial justice move forward without first looking back? Or should removing monuments take a backseat to policy change?

Find a database of public symbols of the Confederacy from the Southern Poverty Law Center here.

1A Across America is funded through a grant from The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. CPB is a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress in 1967 that is the steward of the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting.