US protesters topple Confederate statue in North Carolina

Rasa - American protesters have toppled a Confederate monument in Durham, North Carolina, amid growing tensions between human rights activists and white supremacists in the country.

News ID: 431701

Date: 15 August 2017 - 22:24

RNA - The statue was pulled down and kicked by the protesters on Monday, just days after a life was lost in a counter protest against the so-called nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“No KKK! No fascists! USA,” shouted the protesters as several others were busy removing the monument via a rope.

The Confederate States of America was an unrecognized confederation of secessionist US states whose regional economy was mostly dependent upon agriculture, which in turn largely relied upon the labor of black slaves.

In 2015, the controversial Confederate flag was removed from South Carolina’s State House grounds in a ceremony, which was covered live by television channels.

The flag, which went up on the State House grounds more than half a century ago at the height of the US civil rights movement, was regarded by many as a bitter symbol of racism and slavery.

Dedicated to Durham in 1924, the Confederate statue had been located in front of a local government building.

“It needs to be removed,” organizer Loan Tran told WNCN. “These Confederate statues in Durham, in North Carolina, all across the country.”

White supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis got together in Charlottesville over the weekend for the “Unite the Right” rally, where counter–demonstrator Heather Heyer, 32, was killed after being run over by a car and some 20 others were injured.

A 20-year-old Nazi sympathizer, identified as James Alex Fields Jr, was said to have been behind the wheel.

847/940