Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials

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There are more than 160 monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America (CSA; the Confederacy) and associated figures that have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but five of which have been since 2015.^[1] Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.

More than 700 such monuments and memorials have been created on public land, the vast majority in the South during the era of Jim Crow laws from 1877 to 1964.^[2] Efforts to remove them increased after the Charleston church shooting, the Unite the Right rally, and the murder of George Floyd.^[3][4][5]

Proponents of their removal cite historical analysis that the monuments were not built as memorials, but to intimidate African Americans and reaffirm white supremacy after the Civil War;^[6][7][8][9] and that they memorialize an unrecognized, treasonous^[10][11] government, the Confederacy, whose founding principle was the perpetuation and expansion of slavery. They also argue that the presence of these memorials more than a hundred years after the defeat of the Confederacy continues to disenfranchise and alienate African Americans.^{[12][13][14][15][16]}

Opponents view that removing the monuments as erasing history or a sign of disrespect for heritage; white nationalists and neo-Nazis in particular have mounted protests and opposition to the removals. Some Southern states passed state laws restricting or prohibiting the removal or alteration of public monuments.^[17]

According to The Washington Post, five Confederate monuments were removed after the Civil War, eight in the two years after the Charleston shooting, 48 in the three years after the Unite the Right rally, and 110 in the two years after George Floyd's murder.^[1] In 2022, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he would order the renaming of U.S. military bases named for Confederate generals, as well as other Defense Department property that honored Confederates.^[18]

The campaign to remove monuments extended beyond the United States; many statues and other public works of art related to the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism around the world have been removed or destroyed.