Cities across the US have torn down these controversial Confederate monuments
a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia turned violent. One counter-protester, Heather Heyer, died and dozens more sustained injuries after a driver plowed into a crowd.
This February marks six months sinceHeyer's homicide reinvigorated a national conversation about the role of Confederate statues, memorials, and plaques in public spaces. According to a recent study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, over 1,500 symbols of the Confederacy stand in public places in the US.
Since the Charlottesville incident, more than two dozen cities have removed Civil War-era monuments from plazas, parks, and government buildings or are considering such proposals. Officials from these cities argue that Confederate iconography encourages a revisionist history of the Civil War, during which Confederate states fought for the right to maintain slavery.
The movement to rid streets of these monuments may be just starting. Here are 9 cities that have already done away with them.