List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests


During the riots and peaceful protests that followed the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, a number of monuments and memorials were destroyed or removed, or commitments to remove them were announced. Most of the monuments in question were in the United States, but others were in the United Kingdom, Belgium, New Zealand, India and South Africa. Some had been the subject of lengthy, years-long efforts to remove them, sometimes involving legislation and/or court proceedings. In some cases the removal was legal and official; in others, most notably in Alabama and North Carolina, laws prohibiting the removal of monuments were deliberately broken.
Initially, activists targeted monuments to the Confederate States of America, its leaders and its military. As the scope of the protests broadened to include other forms of systemic racism, many statues of Christopher Columbus in the United States were removed, as he participated in abuses against Native Americans and his arrival in the Americas was the beginning of the genocide of Native American people. Statues of Junípero Serra and Juan de Oñate, also involved in mistreatment of Native Americans, were also torn down or removed. Many other local figures connected with racism were also the subject of protests and monument removals.
In the United Kingdom, removal efforts focused on memorials to figures involved in the Atlantic slave trade, British colonialism, and eugenics. In Belgium, sculptures of King Leopold II were targeted due to his rule during the atrocities in the Congo Free State. In New Zealand, a statue of a British military officer was removed, and in India another was relocated. In South Africa a bust of Cecil Rhodes was decapitated, and a statue of the last president of the Orange Free State was taken down.
Some pro-Union or anti-slavery monuments were targeted because the individuals commemorated also targeted Native Americans, or portrayed the enslaved in a way perceived as disrespectful. In one case, a statue of abolitionist Hans Christian Heg was torn down.
Some, including Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, have compared the vandalism and destruction of monuments and memorials to the period of iconoclasm in the former Soviet Union, or the Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic of China. U.S. president Donald Trump denounced the statue removals as part of a "left-wing cultural revolution" to "wipe out our history" and proposed creating a sculpture garden of national heroes to be determined by the Protecting American Communities Task Force. Among the historical figures being considered for inclusion are Columbus, Douglass, Harriet Tubman and Booker T. Washington.
This list is limited to successful removals, and instances in which a person or body with authority has committed itself to removal. It does not include the many works that have been the subject of petitions, protests, defacement, or attempted removals, such as the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C., and many statues of Leopold II in Belgium.

Sculptures and other monuments

The following monuments and memorials were removed during the George Floyd protests, mainly due to their connections to racism. The majority are in the United States and mostly commemorate the Confederate States of America, but some monuments were also removed in other countries, for example the statues of slave traders in the United Kingdom.
Notes:
The following monuments and memorials were removed during the George Floyd protests due to their association with racism in the United States. Most commemorated people involved in the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, with others linked to the genocide of Native Americans, segregation in the United States, and related issues.
In a few instances, like the Montgomery County Confederate Soldiers Monument and the Statue of John Mason, the monuments had already been moved from their original location, sometimes more than once, as different venues objected.

Confederate States of America

The CSA fought a four-year war to preserve the institution of slavery in the Southern states, before being defeated and seeing all enslaved African Americans become free, and then become citizens with the right to vote and hold office. Confederate monuments commemorate CSA politicians, Army officers, and soldiers. Most are in the former CSA states.
There are 82 entries in this table, as of July 16. It does not include Virginia, which is in a second table that follows.
Virginia
, where the CSA had its capital in Richmond, has the most Confederate monuments of any U.S. state. A March 2020 change in the law of Virginia had already essentially repealed the statute preventing removal of historical monuments, effective from July 1, 2020. This change became possible when voters, after electing the Democrat Ralph Northam as Governor in 2017, gave the Democrats control of both houses of the Virginia General Assembly from January 2020, for the first time in a generation.

Genocide of indigenous peoples

Monuments dedicated to individuals accused of involvement in the genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas have been removed.
Juan de Oñate, when governor of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, was responsible for the 1599 Acoma Massacre. Junípero Serra, a Franciscan friar, who was involved in enslaving Chumash people in the 18th century for the building and supplying of the Spanish missions in California. Diego de Vargas, also governor of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, led the reconquest of the territory in 1692, after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
A handful of towns in Spain have offered to receive statues of Spaniards unwanted in the U.S.
Christopher Columbus
Several statues of Christopher Columbus, the initiator of the European colonization of the Americas, have been removed because of his enslavement of and systemic violence against the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, including the genocide of the Taíno people.

Others

United Kingdom

Atlantic slave trade

The British Royal African Company, which engaged in African slave trading between 1662 and 1731, enslaved and shipped more Africans to the Americas than any other institution in the history of the Atlantic slave trade. Many wealthy British people were involved with this and other slaving companies.

Others

Belgium

King Leopold II of Belgium personally ruled the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908, treating it as his personal property. During this period, many well-documented atrocities were perpetrated against the population, including the severing of hands of workers unable to meet a production quota for rubber, and the destruction of entire villages that were unwilling to participate in the forced labour regime. These acts contributed to a significant population decline during this period, often estimated at between five million and ten million.

New Zealand

officer John Fane Charles Hamilton, after whom the city of Hamilton is named, played a prominent part in the Tauranga campaign of the New Zealand Wars.

India

Slovenia

South Africa

Removals under consideration

Some officials have announced their decisions to remove monuments under their jurisdiction, and are currently working to push through whatever legislative or permission barriers they need to accomplish their goals.

United States

United Kingdom

France

In France, where slavers gave their names to streets but have very few physical monuments, the only work concerned is a mural that is instead a tribute to George Floyd and Adama Traoré, whose deaths caused respectively the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and the French Justice pour Adama movement since 2016, a movement against racism and police violence.

Plaques

United States

United Kingdom

Buildings

The following buildings were destroyed, torn down, or heavily damaged during the George Floyd protests due to their perceived racist heritage: