According to CNN, on Thursday evening, workers, surrounded by a large excited and applauding crowd, pulled down a monument erected in 1908 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which is engaged, inter alia, in perpetuating the memory of the soldiers of the Confederate States Army.
Crowd cheers in Decatur as workers remove the Confederate memorial, which a judge declared a public nuisance. @ajc pic.twitter.com/udoi1GDAsB
— Joshua Sharpe (@JoshuaWSharpe) June 19, 2020
Last week, a Dekalb County judge ordered that the 30-foot monument at Decatur Square be relocated after municipal authorities argued it had become a threat to public safety during the recent protests.
The killing of African American man George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in late May sparked a wave of protests against police brutality and racism that have spread to all 50 states and numerous countries worldwide.
As part of the protests, several monuments dedicated to controversial historical figures who took part in the American Civil War were removed either by the decision of local authorities or by the protesters themselves.
The American Civil War was mainly fought over the issue of slavery between the Union and Confederacy from 1861 to 1865. On 19 June 1865, Union soldiers arrived in the city of Galveston, Texas with news that the American Civil War had ended and that the slaves had been set free.
