Baltimore takes down Confederate statues in middle of night
Confederate-era monuments have been taken down in the middle of the night in Baltimore.
Journalists in the city in Maryland, US, tweeted that the statues were being removed days after a city council vote on the issue.
The memorials in the city include the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Mount Royal Avenue, the Confederate Women’s Monument on West University Parkway, the Roger B Taney Monument on Mount Vernon Place, and the Robert E Lee and Thomas J “Stonewall” Jackson Monument in the Wyman Park Dell.
Confederate-era monuments fell back into the spotlight at the weekend when a civil rights activist died during violence at a far-right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia against plans to removal of a statue of Robert E Lee, who commanded the Confederate army of northern Virginia.
Journalist Baynard Woods posted video of the Taney and Women’s monuments being driven away.
Alec MacGillis, another journalist, posted images of the Jackson and Lee statues being taken down.
The Baltimore mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, announced the creation of a special commission to review all of Baltimore’s Confederate statues and historical assets in June 2015.
Maryland, a slave-owning state, remained in the union during the civil war, which was fought from 1861-65. But Rawlings-Blake’s commission noted that though 65,000 Marylanders fought for the north, 22,000 fought for the Confederacy.