Monumental Shifts
When statues fall, do old orders fall too?
(Wikimedia Commons)
Christopher Columbus
- Richmond, Virginia and Boston, Massachusetts
- June 10, 2020
- In the weeks following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, two Christopher Columbus statues were defaced in separate cities, reflecting the widespread fury erupting on the streets at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Richmond, Virginia, protesters gathered at the Columbus monument in Byrd Park, knocking it over, setting it on fire, and throwing it into a nearby lake. In Boston, the statue of Columbus was found decapitated, its severed head lying beside the body, streaked with red spray paint and accompanied by a sign reading, “Columbus represents genocide.”
Joséphine de Beauharnais
- Fort-de-France, Martinique
- July 27, 2020
- The first wives of famous men are known to get the short end of the stick. This was no different for empress Joséphine de Beauharnais, the former wife of Napoléon Bonaparte, whose imperial statue in La Savane park was smashed by anti-colonial protesters in the present-day French colony of Martinique. This wasn’t the first time her statue had been the target of anti-colonial demonstrations. In 1991, activists protesting French colonial rule decapitated the statue. Her head was never recovered. Unsurprisingly, president Emmanuel Macron, known for his derisive paternalism towards colonies past and present, condemned these acts, stating that “no statues would be removed” in France.
Winston Churchill statue
- London, United Kingdom
- June 8, 2020
- Even the most revered British prime minister wasn’t immune to scrutiny during the global racial reckoning of 2020. Outside Parliament Square in London, Winston Churchill’s statue was branded with the word “racist” by BLM protesters. His critics pointed to his belief in eugenics and “Anglo-Saxon superiority,” role in the 1943 Bengal famine, and aversion to anti-colonial leaders whom he called “savages armed with ideas.” Before alternative right-wing media personalities deemed him the true villain of World War II, Winston Churchill’s reputation was largely unblemished in the Western world. Celebrated as a steadfast wartime leader for the Allied resistance, he’s still regarded as the greatest prime minister that Britain ever produced.
King Leopold II
- Brussels, Belgium
- June 12, 2020
- For a monarch who presided over one of the most brutal colonial regimes in Central Africa, it was only fitting that the bust of King Leopold II in Brussels met a grisly end. Decapitated and smeared with red graffiti, the act symbolized the atrocities he oversaw in the Congo: the extraction of resources and minerals, the maiming of laborers on rubber plantations, and the murder of an estimated 10 million Congolese people. Remarkably, Leopold never once set foot in the land from which he amassed his vast wealth. Throughout June 2020, several of his statues were defaced or toppled by protesters determined to expose the horrors Belgium has refused to acknowledge. While many Belgians expressed surprise at the revelations about Leopold’s reign, for Africans, it was high time the world confronted his heart of darkness.
Jefferson Davis
- Richmond, Virginia
- June 11, 2020
- The Jefferson Davis statue on Richmond’s Monument Avenue was among the first to fall during the #BlackLivesMatter protests of 2020. By the end of the year, The Washington Post reported that at least 90 confederate statues had been removed. As the first and only president of the Confederacy, Davis came to symbolize the South’s violent commitment to slavery—a legacy that evolved into lynchings, Jim Crow laws, and the suppression of the black vote. Erected in 1907, the monument was both a tribute and a warning to the South’s failed attempt at secession, a reminder of the white supremacist order that many Southerners longed to restore. Though the Davis statue had long been contested—especially by Richmond’s black residents—it had withstood numerous calls for removal.
John C. Calhoun
- Charleston, South Carolina
- June 24, 2020
- In the early hours of Wednesday morning, hundreds of onlookers watched as the statue of John C. Calhoun, a former vice-president of the United States and a steadfast Confederate, was removed from Marion Square in Charleston, South Carolina. The event came after the city council voted unanimously to have the statue removed after BLM protesters called for it to be demolished. A staunch white supremacist and enslaver, Calhoun was among several Confederate leaders whose public memorialization came under renewed scrutiny amid the global reckoning with histories of slavery and colonialism. The statue was transported to an undisclosed site where it has been under preservation.
