United States: Protesters Tear Down Columbus Statue in Richmond

By Staff, Agencies

Protesters have torn down a statue of Christopher Columbus in Richmond’s Byrd Park. The statue was seen submerged in a lake at the park Tuesday evening.

Late Tuesday, a few dozen people gathered in Byrd Park, looking at the bronze state submerged facedown on the edge of Fountain Lake.

“I’m not going to say I approve, but I’m not going to say I disapprove either,” said Ronald Johnson, 33, a call center supervisor who has marched five nights in Richmond over the past 12 days. “It would have been more, but I got blisters on my feet.”

Johnson was with at least 100 people at the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee — which Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) has said he plans to put in storage — when word spread that the Columbus statue has been torn down.

A “massive cheer” went up, he said, and he drove over to Byrd Park to see it for himself.

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the idea for the statue came from the city’s Italian-American community in the early 1920s.

It was dedicated in December 1927, the newspaper reported.