Story at a glance
- San Francisco city officials have removed two monuments of Christopher Columbus from public spaces.
- This follows multiple Confederate statues being removed across the U.S.
A statue of Christopher Columbus has just been removed from public grounds in San Francisco, The Mercury News reports.
The monument had formerly been erected in front of Coit Tower, a fixture in the San Francisco city skyline since 1933. The Columbus statue was removed by city crews early Thursday. Over the past few years, the statue had been vandalized with red paint.
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The Northern California city responded to national calls for the removal of memorials and statues that are seen by some to praise the United States’ history of institutionalized racism and white supremacy. Two days prior, California state legislators elected to remove another Columbus statue from the state Capitol rotunda.
State politicians decided it did not fit the ethos of the state legislature “given the deadly impact his arrival in this hemisphere had on indigenous populations,” The Mercury News reports.
“We believe that through public art we can and should honor the heritage of all of our people, including our Italian-American community, but in doing so we should choose symbols that unify us,” said San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin in a statement. “The Arts and Recreation and Park Commissions will engage in a public process to determine what art work should go in that space near Coit Tower.”
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