North Carolina protesters tear down Confederate statue and hang it by the neck from a post
A protester spoke to the crowd under the Confederate Memorial last month during nationwide riots following the death of George Floyd-Reuters
Protesters in the capital of North Carolina tore down parts of a Confederate monument on Friday evening and hung one of the overturned statues on a light pole.
Protesters used a strap to tear down two statues of Confederate soldiers that were part of a larger obelisk near the state capital in downtown Raleigh.
Earlier in the evening, police had frustrated the protesters' earlier attempt to use ropes to topple the statues. After the officials cleared the area, the demonstrators mounted the obelisk and were able to dismantle the statues.
Then they pulled the statues down a street and hung one of the figures on a light pole with a rope around their necks. The other statue was moved to the Wake County courthouse, according to News & Observer.
Leigh Tauss
@LeighTauss
Watch anti-racist protesters demolish part of a Confederate monument outside Raleigh's old Capitol.
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4:27 a.m. - June 20, 2020
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Earlier in the day, hundreds of demonstrators marched through downtown Raleigh and Durham to protest the police brutality and to celebrate June 19, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.
Leigh Tauss
@LeighTauss
The protests are now dancing at the intersection of Hargett and Salisbury streets, while the dilapidated statue of a Confederate soldier hangs on a street sign near #raleigh
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4:21 AM - June 20, 2020Raleigh, NC
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In the past few weeks, numerous Confederate statues in the south have been destroyed or demolished after George Floyd, a black man who was killed after a white Minneapolis policeman gave him a knee for a few minutes.
Confederate monuments were toppled in nearby Durham and Chapel Hill in 2017 and 2018.
It came when protesters in Washington DC toppled and set fire to the only statue of a Confederate general in the nation's capital.
Cheering demonstrators jumped up and down as the three-meter statue of Albert Pike wobbled on its high granite pedestal before falling backwards and landing in a dust pile. The demonstrators then made a campfire and stood in a circle as the statue burned and sang, "No justice, no peace!" and "No Racist Police!"
Eyewitness accounts and videos posted on social media showed that the police were on the scene but did not intervene. President Donald Trump quickly tweeted about the fall, called the Mayor of DC, Muriel Bowser, and wrote: "The DC police are not doing their job watching a statue being torn down and burned. These people should be arrested immediately. A shame for our country! "
Cheering demonstrators read Trump's tweet over a megaphone and cheered. After the statue fell, most of the protesters peacefully returned to Lafayette Park near the White House.
The pike statue has been a source of controversy over the years. The former Confederate General was also a longtime influential leader of the Freemasons who worshiped Pike and paid for the statue. Pike's body is buried in the DC headquarters of the Scottish Freemasonry rite, which also houses a small museum in his honor.
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