January 1, Report: 73 Confederate Statues Removed or Altered in 2021

A new report found that 73 Confederate statues were removed or renamed last year.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) report, the removals and renaming began amid the protests against police violence and racial injustice, with “protests over the murder of George Floyd spark[ing] the removal, relocation, or renaming of at least 200 memorials.”

“Memorials are most often removed in the wake of a tragedy, as we saw after the Charleston Church massacre in 2015; after Heather Heyer’s death at the Unite the Right Rally in 2017; and after George Floyd’s murder in 2020,” SPLC Chief of Staff Lecia Brooks said in a statement.

“But in 2021, Americans continued pushing for change and succeeded by removing a record 73 memorials from public spaces. This is the most symbols affected without a tragedy occurring since SPLC started tracking in 2015 and the second highest number of removals in one year since we began tracking.”

There are currently 723 Confederate monuments in the U.S., with one in Puerto Rico.

“Destroying these monuments will not erase the legacy of slavery,” the SPLC wrote.

“But abolishing these memorials is a first and essential step in combating the white supremacist values of the Confederacy, while drawing on historical memory to facilitate community healing.”

The report also found 741 roadways, 201 schools, and 22 holidays that honor the Confederacy, the presence of which “do important cultural work to reinforce white supremacy,” the SPLC claimed.

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73 Confederate statues removed or renamed last year