By Michael Levenson
New York Times
Protesters toppled a statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, in Richmond, Va., on Wednesday night, as demonstrators across the country continued to target symbols of white supremacy after the death of George Floyd.
Demonstrators knocked down the statue at about 11 p.m., according to The Richmond Times-Dispatch, and local news reports showed photographs of it lying on the street, with the police nearby before a tow truck carted it away.
The statue was among a number of prominent Confederate monuments that had stood on Monument Avenue in Richmond, which was once the capital of the Confederacy.
On Thursday, Mr. Stoney called Davis “a racist & traitor who fled our city as his troops carried out orders to burn it to the ground.”
“He never deserved to be up on that pedestal,” the mayor tweeted, vowing that the city would take steps to remove other statues soon.
Demonstrators knocked down the statue at about 11 p.m., according to The Richmond Times-Dispatch, and local news reports showed photographs of it lying on the street, with the police nearby before a tow truck carted it away.
The statue was among a number of prominent Confederate monuments that had stood on Monument Avenue in Richmond, which was once the capital of the Confederacy.
It came down one week after Mayor Levar Stoney of Richmond said he would propose an ordinance to remove all four Confederate monuments that the city controls along Monument Avenue. Mr. Stoney said he would introduce the bill on July 1, when a new state law goes into effect giving local governments the authority to remove the monuments on their own.
“Richmond is no longer the capital of the Confederacy — it is filled with diversity and love for all — and we need to demonstrate that,” Mr. Stoney said in a statement.
On Thursday, Mr. Stoney called Davis “a racist & traitor who fled our city as his troops carried out orders to burn it to the ground.”
“He never deserved to be up on that pedestal,” the mayor tweeted, vowing that the city would take steps to remove other statues soon.
In 2018, a commission appointed by Mr. Stoney recommended that the Davis monument be removed and replaced with a new statue. “Of all the statues, this one is most unabashedly Lost Cause in its design and sentiment,” the commissioners wrote. They also noted that Davis was not from Richmond or Virginia.
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