Chicago (AFP)
Two statues of the explorer Christopher Columbus were debunked Friday before dawn in Chicago at the request of the mayor of the city, worried about the confrontations around the monuments to the glory of this character more and more contested in the United States.
In the middle of the night, municipal workers used a crane to remove a statue wrapped in a white tarpaulin, located in Grant Park.
"It feels good to see the statue fall," Brenda Armenta, a resident of Chicago, told AFP. "People realize that we have been told lies to oppress us," she added.
Long presented as "the discoverer of America", Christopher Columbus is now associated by some with the atrocities committed by Europeans against Amerindians.
A second statue of the Genoese navigator was unbolted in the Italian quarter of the third largest city in the United States. The authorities did not specify where the statues were taken.
The withdrawals were ordered by Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot "in response to protests which have become dangerous for protesters and police, but also because of individual efforts" to bring down the statue, his services said in a statement.
Defenders and detractors of Christopher Columbus clashed at the foot of the statue in Grant Park on several occasions, and again on Thursday evening.
The death of George Floyd, an African American suffocated by a white policeman on May 25 in Minneapolis, has sparked debate across the United States about racism and its historical foundations. This examination of conscience led to the unbolting of several statues of characters linked to slavery or the oppression of minorities.
Statues of Christopher Columbus have been removed in Baltimore, Boston or San Francisco, but Republican President Donald Trump, who sees these actions as the work of "anarchists" and "agitators", rushed to the aid of the Explorer.
"We will fight together for the American dream, and we will defend, protect, and preserve the American way of life that began in 1492 when Christopher Columbus discovered America," he said during his speech for the national holiday, July 4th.
Lori Lightfoot's decision could increase tensions with the White House, which has already decided to send, against the mayor's advice, federal police as reinforcements to Chicago, where crime has been on the rise for several weeks.
© 2020 AFP