Confederate monuments come down across the South

A group of protesters in Durham, N.C., used ropes Monday night to topple a statue of a Confederate soldier outside an old courthouse that now houses local government offices. Video of the event shows the group kicking the crumpled bronze statue once it was pulled to the ground. The Durham protest is part of a growing backlash against Confederate monuments across the South following Saturday’s violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee there. On Sunday, Lexington, Ky., Mayor Jim Gray announced plans to relocate two statues standing outside a courthouse that once hosted slave auctions. “Relocating these statues and explaining them is the right thing to do,” Gray said in a YouTube video. In Louisville, Ky., someone splattered orange paint over a statue of a Confederate officer. In Nashville, Tenn., protesters gathered outside the state Capitol to call for the removal of a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and early leader of the Ku Klux Klan. They covered the bust with a black jacket and chanted, “Tear it down!” In Gainesville, Fla., crews on Monday dismantled the base of a Confederate statue outside a county administration building. And in Baltimore, Mayor Catherine Pugh is looking for contractors to remove several Confederate monuments.