Protesters Beheaded a Christopher Columbus Statue in Boston. Another, in Richmond, Was Tossed Into a Lake

The monuments continue to topple
around the world—and in increasingly symbolic ways.

In Boston, two statues
memorializing Christopher Columbus, the explorer who many believe
responsible for starting the trans-Atlantic slave trade, were
targeted by protesters last night.

In the city’s North End, an
Italian marble monument of Columbus, located in a park named after
him, was beheaded. This morning, the decapitated head lay next to
its plinth, encircled by police tape, like a lurid crime
scene. 

The city’s mayor Marty Walsh
announced after the incident that the statue would be removed from
the park and put in storage, according to CBS
Boston. Whether or not
it will go back up has yet to be determined.

“Given the conversations that
we’re certainly having right now in our city of Boston and
throughout the country, we’re also going to take time to assess the
historic meaning of this action,” Walsh told reporters
today.

The statue, erected in 1979, has
been vandalized numerous times, most recently in 2015 when it was
covered in red paint and the words “Black Lives Matter” were
spray-painted on its base. It was also beheaded in
2006. 

Meanwhile, in Richmond, roughly
1,000 protesters used ropes to topple an eight-foot-tall Columbus
statue last night. They then proceeded to light it on fire and drag
it into a shallow lake some 200 yards away. Placed next to the
water was a sign that read, “Racism. You will not be
missed.”

No one was arrested during the
episode. Authorities removed the statue from the lake this
morning.  

The monument was put in place in
1927, and was the first such statue erected in memorial of the
colonizer in the south, according to the Richmond
Times-Dispatch.

“This continent is built on the
blood and the bones of our ancestors, but it is built off the backs
and the sweat and the tears and the blood and the bones of
Africans,” said Vanessa Bolin, a member of the Richmond Indigenous
Society, in a rally prior to the monument’s removal.

“We’re not here to hijack your
movement. We’re here to stand in solidarity.”

The befallen shrine to Columbus
isn’t the only monument in Virginia’s capital city targeted by
protesters in recent weeks. Five Confederate statues along
Richmond’s Monument Avenue have also been
attacked. 

The city’s mayor, Levar Stoney,
has pledged to take down the four municipally-owned monuments,
while last week, Virginia governor Ralph Northam announced his own
plans to remove the most
statue infamous of the bunch—and the only one owned by the state—a
memorial to Confederate commander Robert E. Lee. However, a
local court has
since blocked him from
taking action for 10 days.     

The post Protesters Beheaded a Christopher Columbus Statue
in Boston. Another, in Richmond, Was Tossed Into a Lake
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