New York, New York, United States of America
A statue of Christopher Columbus in Richmond, US was torn down by anti-racism protestors, set on fire and then thrown into a lake.
A sign that reads -- Columbus represents genocide -- was placed on the spray-painted foundation that once held the statue after it was removed from its pedestal in the city's Byrd Park around 8:30 pm on Tuesday by protestors using several ropes.
Its toppling comes amid national protests over the death of George Floyd and several days after a statue of Confederate General Williams Carter Wickham was pulled from its pedestal in Monroe Park by demonstrators who also used ropes to tear it down.
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"We have to start where it all began. We have to start with the people who stood first on this land," activist Chelsea Higgs-Wise said during her speech to a crowd gathered at Byrd Park about the struggles of indigenous people and African-Americans in America.
The Columbus statue was dedicated in Richmond in December 1927, and had been the first statue of Christopher Columbus erected in the South.
Beheaded statue of Christopher Columbus in Richmond
Native American advocates have long pressed states to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day over concerns that Columbus spurred centuries of genocide against indigenous populations in the Americas.
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Elsewhere, protestors in Portsmouth, Virginia, covered a Confederate monument in the city with trash bags and sheets Wednesday, several hours after the city's council members had a meeting to figure out ways to relocate it.
A white sheet that read "BLM" covered the fence in front of the monument hours after the Portsmouth city council met Tuesday to discuss who owns the figure. The question about who owns the monument has been the main roadblock in the city's years-long quest to remove it.