Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Fresno Leaders Voice ‘Full Support’ for Pismo’s Restaurant Manager in ICE Custody

7 hours ago

Poll: Katie Porter Holds Early Edge in California Governor’s Race

9 hours ago

Just 38% of Americans Support Trump’s Use of Troops to Police DC, Reuters/Ipsos Poll Finds

10 hours ago

Families Leave Gaza City After Night of Bombardment, Israelis Protest

12 hours ago

California Farming Couple Seeks $300 Million for Aspen Estate

13 hours ago

Trump Administration Cannot Sue Maryland Federal Judges Over Immigration Order, Judge Rules

14 hours ago

California Republicans Sue to Block Congressional Redistricting Plan

1 day ago

Trump To Sign Executive Order Directing AG To Prosecute Flag Desecration

1 day ago

Fresno County DUI Crash Sends Car Into Embankment Near Highway 99

2 days ago
While Confederate Statues Come Down, Other Symbols Targeted
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 5 years ago on
June 22, 2020

Share

RALEIGH, N.C. — Spectators in North Carolina’s capital cheered Sunday morning as work crews finished the job started by protesters Friday night and removed a Confederate statue from the top of a 75-foot monument.
Across the country, an initially peaceful protest in Portland, Oregon, against racial injustice turned violent early Sunday: Baton-wielding police used flash-bang grenades to disperse demonstrators throwing bottles, cans and rocks at sheriff’s deputies near downtown’s Justice Center.

Across the country, an initially peaceful protest in Portland, Oregon, against racial injustice turned violent early Sunday: Baton-wielding police used flash-bang grenades to disperse demonstrators throwing bottles, cans and rocks at sheriff’s deputies near downtown’s Justice Center.
News outlets reported that work crews acting on the order of Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper removed the statue Sunday morning and began taking down the obelisk on which it stood.
Sunday’s work follows the removal of two other Confederate statues on the state Capitol grounds in Raleigh on Saturday.
Cooper ordered the statues removed after protesters toppled two other Confederate statues Friday night, stringing one up by the neck and hanging it from a light pole.
“Monuments to white supremacy don’t belong in places of allegiance, and it’s past time that these painful memorials be moved in a legal, safe way,” Cooper said in a press release Saturday.
A 2015 law bars removal of the statues without approval of a state historical commission, but Cooper said he’s acting under a public-safety exception to the law out of concern for the danger presented when protesters seek to topple the statues themselves.
Cooper has advocated the statues’ removal for years. Republicans, though, blamed him for not ordering police to take a tougher stand Friday night to protect the memorials.
In Wilmington, N.C., Democratic Mayor Bill Saffo imposed a curfew in a narrow area surrounding two Confederate monuments to try to thwart any vandalism or destruction. The curfew from 7:30 p.m. through 7 a.m. began Saturday night and lasts five nights.
In Baltimore, a statue and memorial to George Washington in a city park were vandalized with red paint. The Baltimore Sun reports that the memorial in Druid Hill Park in northwest Baltimore also had the words “Destroy Racists” and the initials for the Black Lives Matter movement written on the base.
Police said Sunday morning that they had not received any complaints about the vandalism.
Baltimore removed several statues and memorials linked to the Confederacy in 2017.

Protesters Have Also at Times Targeted Founding Fathers Who Were Slaveholders

In St. Augustine, Florida, the nation’s oldest city, a debate over history is looming over a monument, located in the city’s historic central plaza, memorializing dozens of the city’s sons who died fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War.
The Rev. Ron Rawls, a pastor at St. Paul’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, calls the monument disrespectful and wants it removed. The City Commission is expected to decide whether to heed that call on Monday.

In California, protesters over the weekend targeted statues and busts of former President Ulysses Grant, who commanded the Union Army that defeated the Confederacy; Francis Scott Key, who wrote “The Star Spangled Banner;” and Spanish missionary Junipero Serra, who is credited with bringing Roman Catholicism to the western United States. Grant and Key were both slave owners at points in their lives.
As statues and memorials to the Confederacy have been targeted across the South, prompted by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, protesters have also at times targeted Founding Fathers who were slaveholders, including Washington.

Teddy Roosevelt Statue Will Be Removed

In New York, the American Museum of Natural History will remove a prominent statue of Theodore Roosevelt from its entrance after years of objections that it symbolizes colonial expansion and racial discrimination, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday.
The bronze statue that has stood at the museum’s Central Park West entrance since 1940 depicts Roosevelt on horseback with a Native American man and an African man standing next to the horse.
“The American Museum of Natural History has asked to remove the Theodore Roosevelt statue because it explicitly depicts Black and Indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior,” de Blasio said in a written statement. “The City supports the Museum’s request. It is the right decision and the right time to remove this problematic statue.”
In California, protesters over the weekend targeted statues and busts of former President Ulysses Grant, who commanded the Union Army that defeated the Confederacy; Francis Scott Key, who wrote “The Star Spangled Banner;” and Spanish missionary Junipero Serra, who is credited with bringing Roman Catholicism to the western United States. Grant and Key were both slave owners at points in their lives.
In another case in California, symbols of the Black Lives Matter movement have been targeted in recent weeks with vandalism. Three men, including employees of a sheriff’s office and district attorney’s office, were arrested in connection with the vandalism of a Black Lives Matter sign.
Portland police and Multnomah County sheriff’s deputies arrested several people after a group of protesters pulled down a fence cordoning off the center, tossed objects including fireworks at officers and ignored repeated warnings to disperse, police said in a statement. It said some people shined lasers into the eyes of deputies.
Seattle police on Sunday pursued their investigation into a weekend shooting in the city’s protest zone that killed a 19-year-old man and critically injured another person. No arrests had been made.

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

California Searchers Pull Off High-Altitude Rescue of Missing Hiker

DON'T MISS

Judge Grants Fresno Temporary Win in Federal Grant DEI Dispute

DON'T MISS

Trump Administration Asks US Supreme Court to Halt Foreign Aid Payments

DON'T MISS

Hamas Challenges Israeli Account of Gaza Hospital Casualties

DON'T MISS

Fresno Unified Set to Hire Deputy Superintendent With Impressive Credentials

DON'T MISS

Meta to Launch California Super PAC Backing Pro-AI Candidates

DON'T MISS

Poll: Californians Overwhelmingly Reject Trump’s Immigration Policies

DON'T MISS

Fresno Leaders Voice ‘Full Support’ for Pismo’s Restaurant Manager in ICE Custody

DON'T MISS

Leaked Audio Reveals Ex-Israeli Intelligence Chief Calling Gaza Deaths ‘Necessary’

DON'T MISS

Texas GOP Congressional Candidate Burns Quran With Flamethrower

UP NEXT

Poll: Californians Overwhelmingly Reject Trump’s Immigration Policies

UP NEXT

Texas GOP Congressional Candidate Burns Quran With Flamethrower

UP NEXT

California High-Speed Rail Project Hit With New $175 Million Cut

UP NEXT

Poll: Katie Porter Holds Early Edge in California Governor’s Race

UP NEXT

Just 38% of Americans Support Trump’s Use of Troops to Police DC, Reuters/Ipsos Poll Finds

UP NEXT

US to Seek Death Penalty in Washington D.C. Homicide Cases, Trump Says

UP NEXT

Coarsegold Elementary Briefly Locked Down After Student Brings Starter Pistol

UP NEXT

HHS Asks 46 States and Territories to Remove ‘Gender Ideology’ Content From Sex Ed Materials

UP NEXT

Trump Urges Cracker Barrel to Revert to Old Logo

UP NEXT

California Farming Couple Seeks $300 Million for Aspen Estate

Hamas Challenges Israeli Account of Gaza Hospital Casualties

6 hours ago

Fresno Unified Set to Hire Deputy Superintendent With Impressive Credentials

6 hours ago

Meta to Launch California Super PAC Backing Pro-AI Candidates

7 hours ago

Poll: Californians Overwhelmingly Reject Trump’s Immigration Policies

7 hours ago

Fresno Leaders Voice ‘Full Support’ for Pismo’s Restaurant Manager in ICE Custody

7 hours ago

Leaked Audio Reveals Ex-Israeli Intelligence Chief Calling Gaza Deaths ‘Necessary’

8 hours ago

Texas GOP Congressional Candidate Burns Quran With Flamethrower

8 hours ago

Madera County Authorities Arrest Army Sergeant in Child Sexual Abuse Material Investigation

8 hours ago

California High-Speed Rail Project Hit With New $175 Million Cut

8 hours ago

Poll: Katie Porter Holds Early Edge in California Governor’s Race

9 hours ago

California Searchers Pull Off High-Altitude Rescue of Missing Hiker

A hiker missing since Aug. 16 was located and evacuated Tuesday, Aug. 19, during a multi-agency search-and-rescue operation near Cottonwood ...

4 hours ago

On Tuesday, August 19, 2025, a hiker missing since August 16 was safely located and evacuated near Cottonwood Lakes during a multi-agency search and rescue operation. (Kern County SO)
4 hours ago

California Searchers Pull Off High-Altitude Rescue of Missing Hiker

Fresno City Gavel Lawsuit
5 hours ago

Judge Grants Fresno Temporary Win in Federal Grant DEI Dispute

People walk across the plaza of the U.S. Supreme Court building on the first day of the court's new term in Washington, U.S. October 3, 2022. (Reuters File)
6 hours ago

Trump Administration Asks US Supreme Court to Halt Foreign Aid Payments

People walk at the site of Israeli strikes on Nasser hospital where Palestinian cameraman Hussam al-Masri, who was a contractor for Reuters, was killed along with other journalists and people, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip in this still image taken from video, August 25, 2025. (Reuters File)
6 hours ago

Hamas Challenges Israeli Account of Gaza Hospital Casualties

FUSD Fresno Unified employment agreement Ben Drati
6 hours ago

Fresno Unified Set to Hire Deputy Superintendent With Impressive Credentials

7 hours ago

Meta to Launch California Super PAC Backing Pro-AI Candidates

7 hours ago

Poll: Californians Overwhelmingly Reject Trump’s Immigration Policies

7 hours ago

Fresno Leaders Voice ‘Full Support’ for Pismo’s Restaurant Manager in ICE Custody

Search

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Send this to a friend