Here’s How Statues Across The World Look After A Week Of Reckoning (Photos)

Calls to re-examine historical monuments have spread from the U.S. to France, Brussels, Italy, England, and New Zealand, where people are engaging in debates as to whether this movement erases history or updates it. 

A statue of Christopher Columbus on Boston’s Atlantic Avenue was beheaded on the night of June 9 after protesters in Virginia tore down a different Columbus statue, set it on fire and threw it into a lake. 

On June 14, protesters in Bristol, England, toppled and drowned the statue of slaver Edward Colston, leading London Mayor Sadiq Khan to remove the statue of another slaver, Robert Milligan, from outside the Museum of London Docklands and order a review into London’s statues and street names to remove any with links to slavery. 

A statue of King Leopold II, who reportedly oversaw mass killings of Congolese people in the late 19th and early 20th century, was removed from Antwerp Square in Belgium by the government after being targeted by protesters. 

In the American South, where the movement started, prominent monuments have been removed from cities in Alabama, Virginia, Florida, and Kentucky. 

Some cities are now pre-emptively boarding up statues to avoid further destruction.