Confederate Statues Defaced, America Disgraced

On Sunday evening, demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd defaced and toppled a statue of Confederate officer Charles Linn, which had stood in a public park in Birmingham, Alabama, since being installed in 2013 by a charity.

The destruction of this Confederate monument is but one in a sequence of such vandalisms that have swept the nation’s southern states in the past week. The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Birmingham was defaced before authorities disassembled and relocated it. A Confederate monument on the University of Mississippi campus was vandalized Saturday evening by protesters. A statue of General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, has likewise been a target of vandalism, along with Confederate statues in North and South Carolina. A 131-year-old statue of a Confederate soldier in Alexandria, Virginia, was removed before any harm could come to it. In addition, a statue of Thomas Jefferson in Birmingham was set on fire, and a statue of Mayor Frank Rizzo of Philadelphia was graffitied. These latter figures, although not associated with the Confederacy, were vandalized for the same reason — their perceived racist attitudes and actions, called to attention in light of George Floyd’s death.