Baltimore protesters knock down the Christopher Columbus statue and throw it into the inner harbor.

Protesters in Baltimore downed a statue of Christopher Columbus and threw it into the city’s inner port on Independence Day. Protesters used ropes to pull the Columbus statue near the city’s Little Italy neighborhood when fireworks exploded in the city on July 4. It marks the latest collapse of a monument when the United States and other countries in the world go through a very public trial of systemic racism and police violence. In Baltimore, the statue was demolished and thrown into the port as part of a rally demanding, among other things, to cut the budget for the police department and remove statues that “honor white supremacists, enslaved owners, perpetrators of genocide. ” and colonizers. “

The Columbus statues were attacked as part of the protests, as protesters tore them apart or tore them apart in numerous cities, including Miami, Richmond, St. Paul and Boston. It also took place over a weekend when Trump characterized those who want to topple statues as members of a “left-wing cultural revolution” that is trying to rewrite America’s history.

The Columbus statue in Baltimore was owned by the city and dedicated in 1984 by former Mayor William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan. But the city government did not seem very angry about losing the monument. Bringing the statue down is part of a “reexamination taking place nationally and globally around some of these monuments and statues that may represent different things to different people,” Lester Davis, spokesman for Democratic Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, he told the Baltimore Sun on Saturday night. “We understand that the dynamics unfolding in Baltimore are part of a national narrative.” Davis also emphasized that protecting the statues was not a priority for the police in the city because they have so many bigger problems to worry about. “Our officers in Baltimore City, who are some of the best in the country, are primarily concerned with preserving life,” he said. “That is sacrosanct. Everything else is secondary to that, including the statues.

Whether to tear down the statue had already been a matter of debate in the city. City Council President Brandon Scott, who is also the Democratic mayoral candidate, said Saturday night that he had suggested the statue be removed in 2017 when several Confederate monuments were removed. Other local lawmakers had recently argued that the city needed to do more to protect and preserve the city of Columbus statues.

During a speech at Mount Rushmore on Friday, Trump unveiled an executive order to establish a “National Garden of American Heroes” that will include statues of “historically significant Americans.” The executive order specifically states that those to be included in the garden “include public figures such as Christopher Columbus, Junípero Serra, and the Marquis de La Fayette, who lived before or during the American Revolution and were not US citizens, but who made substantive historical contributions to the discovery, development, or independence of the future United States. “