There’s never been a worse time to be a statue of an old racist dude.
The global protests against systemic racism and police brutality, in solidarity with the U.S. Black Lives Matter movement as well as individual nations’ own institutional issues, have been spreading and strengthening since the death of George Floyd, who died after an officer kneeled on his neck for nearly 9 minutes on May 25. The protests have already had a tangible effect on policy decisions and public opinion, but one of the most visible achievements of the protests has been the toppling, defacing, and even removal by authorities, of racist monuments and statues.
From former Confederate president Jefferson Davis to Christopher Columbus and Winston Churchill, statues of historical figures have been coming down or getting makeovers — primarily statues of European colonizers, slave traders or owners, and other Great Men whose racist opinions or policies have been airbrushed out of the version of history we learned in school. Some were removed by protesters, others by city authorities. Many others have been splashed with blood-red paint, creatively annotated, or decorated in other ways to indicate that enormous likenesses of known racists towering over people in public spaces are not seen as a neutral invitation to reflect quietly upon the nuances of a violent, racist history, but an institutional refusal to reckon with it.
The push to remove Confederate and other racist monuments from public spaces continues, with the potential for them to be rehoused in museums where they can be displayed alongside other historical artifacts in context. Meanwhile, a 55-year-old woman in Atlanta has been charged with a felony, namely interference with government property for writing “TEAR DOWN” on a Confederate statue plinth with chalk, and Australian authorities are making noise about “tougher anti-vandalism laws” after two statues of British colonizer Captain James Cook were spray-painted by activists.
If you’re interested in the process of bringing down statues, here is a purely hypothetical guide to how it can be done safely. The safest way to get these pompous eyesores out of public spaces, though, is to pressure your local city council or mayor’s office to remove them, and vote for representatives who have no interest in preserving public monuments to oppressors. As Taylor Swift said, villains don’t deserve statues.
In the meantime, please enjoy these striking images of shrines to violence and genocide being treated with the respect they deserve.
A woman looks at a statue depicting Christopher Columbus, which had its head removed at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park on June 10, 2020 in Boston, Massachusetts. The statue’s future is yet to be decided.
Image: Tim Bradbury / Getty Images
A statue of Christopher Columbus lays next to a city owned flatbed truck after a crew removed the statue from its base at Farnham Park in Camden, New Jersey on June 13, 2020.
Image: Bastiaan Slabbers / NurPhoto via Getty Images
The pedestal where a statue of Christopher Columbus stood is pictured on June 11, 2020 in Richmond, Virginia. Protesters also tore down a statue of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.
Image: Zach Gibson / Getty Images
A vandalized statue of Christopher Columbus is seen at Bayfront Park on June 11, 2020, after a protest the previous day against George Floyd’s death, police brutality, and racial inequality in Miami, Florida.
Image: Eva Marie Uzcategui Trinkl / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
A Richmond police officer stands by the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis after it was pulled down from its pedestal on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia on June 10, 2020.
Image: John McDonnell / The Washington Post via Getty Images
A vandalized Civil War statue looks over the fourth consecutive day of protests on May 31, 2020 in Denver, Colorado.
Image: Michael Ciaglo / Getty Images)
Protesters gather around a vandalised statue of Former Governor of Puerto Rico, Juan Ponce de Leon in Downtown Miami on June 12, 2020.
Image: CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP via Getty Images
A vandalized statue of Boer leader Paul Kruger on Church Square on June 10, 2020 in Pretoria, South Africa.
Image: Alet Pretorius / Gallo Images via Getty Images
The statue of former British prime minister Winston Churchill is seen defaced in Parliament Square, London after a demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy, on June 7, 2020.
Image: ISABEL INFANTES / AFP via Getty Images
Graffiti covers a statue of Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, on Melville Street in Edinburgh on June 12, 2020.
Image: ANDY BUCHANAN / AFP via Getty Images
A statue of journalist Indro Montanelli after it was vandalised with red paint and graffiti in the gardens dedicated to him on June 14, 2020 in Milan, Italy. Montanelli claimed he bought a 12-year-old Eritrean girl as his wife while serving in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1936.
Image: Jacopo Raule / Getty Images
The statue of slave trader Edward Colston is retrieved from Bristol Harbour by a salvage team on June 11, 2020 in Bristol, England. The statue was pulled from its plinth in the city centre and thrown in the water by anti-racism campaigners during a Black Lives Matter protest.
Image: Andrew Lloyd / Getty Images)
A bust of former Belgian king Leopold II daubed with red paint is removed by a city worker in Auderghem, near Brussels on June 12, 2020. Several statues of the late monarch, a symbol of Belgium’s bloody history as colonial power in central Africa, have been defaced as the U.S. campaign for racial justice re-energizes the struggle in Europe.
Image: KENZO TRIBOUILLARD / AFP via Getty Images
The iconic statue of the Duke of Wellington sports a traffic cone with a Black Lives Matter logo in Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow, Scotland on June 12, 2020.
Image: ANDY BUCHANAN / AFP via Getty Images
People visit the graffiti covered statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee on June 13, 2020 at Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. Many have long called for taking down statues of Confederate Generals who fought a war to defend slavery, and later, were erected by southern states to help justify the disenfranchisement of Black citizens.
Image: Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty Images