BOSTON, Mass. – A statue of Christopher Columbus was beheaded in Boston.
A WHDH photographer discovered the vandalism at Christopher Columbus Park on Atlantic Avenue shortly after midnight on Wednesday.
WHDH reports that the same statue was vandalized with red paint and the phrase “Black Lives Matter” in 2015. And in 2006, the head was broken off and went missing for six days before it was put back on, WHDH says.
The city’s mayor, Marty Walsh, told WBZ-TV that the statue will be put in storage and there will be conversations about the “historic meaning” of the incident and whether it will ever go back up.
This Massachusetts statue is one of many that have been vandalized, taken down or destroyed amid the ongoing protests over racial justice following the death of George Floyd.
Another statue of Christopher Columbus in Richmond, Virginia, was torn down by protesters, set on fire and then thrown into a lake on Tuesday night, WTVR reports.
In other states, there’s a renewed movement to remove confederate statues and monuments, which some say glorify the Civil War-era South. Statues were recently removed from Indianapolis and Jacksonville.
And in Richmond, the former capitol of the Confederacy, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has announced plans to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. However, a circuit court judge has delayed the removal by granting a 10-day injunction.
