By Kaniehtonkie

Statues have become a target of protesters since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

A statue of Christophe Columbus has been torn down and another was beheaded. The statute of Columbus in Bryd Park in Richmond Virginia was torn down and toss into the water on Tuesday, June 9. It was reported at least some 1,000 people are believed to have attended Tuesday night's demonstrations in Richmond.

"We have to start where it all began," activist Chelsea Higgs-Wise told the crowd, according to Richmond Times Dispatch, "We have to start with the people who stood first on this land."

Protesters had surrounded the statue, which was festooned with graffiti.

One held a sign that said: "Columbus represents genocide."

Protestors chanted "Tear it down" as the demonstrators used a rope to dislodge the 8-foot statue and then dragged the statue about 200 feet and dumped it into Byrd Park Lake.

This action came after a judge in Virginia blocked the removal of a statue depicting Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond.

On June 7 the statue of famed British slave trader Edward Colston was toppled and thrown into Bristol's harbor last weekend as anti-racism protests spread worldwide. Museum of Bristol says Colston was born in the city in 1636, but spent his working life in London, becoming "an active member of the governing body of the RAC [Royal African Company], which traded in enslaved Africans, for 11 years."

On June 6 protesters toppled a statue of a Confederate general in Richmond, Virginia. Confederate Gen. Williams Carter Wickham in the Richmond's Monroe Park adds to the number of monuments of former slave-owning South to be pulled down by both protesters and public officials as people nationwide demanding racial justice and an end to police brutality.

Also, on Saturday protesters in Nashville, Tennessee set fires inside and outside a courthouse Saturday night and toppled a statue of a former state lawmaker and newspaper publisher who espoused racist views. Demonstrators pulled down a statue of Edward Carmack, Carmack disagreed with another newspaper writer, the pioneering Civil Rights activist, Ida B. Wells.

According to the Tennessee State Museum, Wells was a full-time journalist and editor, and had a one-third interest in an African American newspaper, the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight. She attacked segregation, lynching and other racial injustices. When African American businessmen Calvin McDowell, Thomas Moss, and Henry Stewart who owned a grocery store were arrested, taken to the Shelby County jail and then lynched by being shot, she denounced the action. Carmack incited a mob against Wells, and her newspaper office was destroyed. She was out of town at the time and did not return to Memphis. Activist Wells became an internationally renowned anti-lynching activist.

The Christopher Columbus statue in Boston's North End will be removed Wednesday, hours after it was beheaded overnight. Mayor Marty Walsh said it will be put in storage and there will now be conversations about whether it will ever go back up.

British slave trader Edward Colston statue was torn down in Bristol, England.

According to CBS Boston, when Walsh was asked Wednesday if the statue will be returned to the park, the mayor said, "We're going to have conversations at some point. We are going to be taking the statue down this morning and putting it into storage to assess the damage to the statue, that said, this particular statue has been subject to repeated vandalism here in Boston, and given the conversations that we're certainly having right now in our city of Boston and throughout the country, we're also going to take time to assess the historic meaning of this action."