On June 17, 2015, 21-year-old white supremacist Dylann Roof entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. He opened fire, shooting and killing nine people, all of whom were African American. In response, Confederate flags, long a symbol of the values of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, were removed from state grounds and a discussion about the removal of Confederate monuments began.
On Aug. 11-12, 2017, white supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis gathered in Charlottesville, Va. to protest the removal of a statue depicting Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Protesters clashed with counter-protesters, and after a state of emergency was declared, a man linked to white supremacist groups rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters near the rally site. One person died, and 19 were injured.
That event spurred cities and counties across the United States to earnestly take down Confederate monuments. Here, I’ve mapped out all the Confederate monuments removed from across the United States in 2017.
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