Birmingham Mayor Orders Removal of Confederate Monument in Public Park

As the sun set on an extraordinary day of civil unrest across America, the mayor of Birmingham, Ala., ordered the removal of a contentious Confederate statue from a public park.

One day after dozens of protesters targeted the statue, the 115-year-old Confederate Soldiers & Sailors Monument in Linn Park, defacing and chipping away at its base, the mayor said it would be removed. A large crane arrived shortly before 8 p.m., in the final hours of Jefferson Davis Day, the state holiday in Alabama honoring the Confederate leader.

The statue has been at the center of a legal fight between the city and the state’s attorney general’s office, with the city wanting it removed but ultimately losing the battle. Still, Randall Woodfin, the mayor of the majority black city, approved the removal on Monday in defiance of the Alabama Monuments Preservation Act, setting the stage for another showdown.

On Sunday night, demonstrators gathered at the park, in downtown Birmingham, to protest the death last week of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer in Minneapolis pressed his left knee into Mr. Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.

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