Protesters pull down statue of former US president in San Francisco

Grant, the 18th president of the U.S., Spanish missionary Junipero Serra and Francis Scott Key, who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The group of protesters arrived at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Friday night and after defacing the statues with red paint and writing “slave owner” on the platforms they were on, they toppled them using ropes and dragged them down grassy slopes amid cheers and applause.

In San Francisco, a group of about 400 people tore down statues of Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the U.S., Spanish missionary Junipero Serra and Francis Scott Key, who wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner." The group of protesters arrived at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Friday night and after defacing the statues with red paint and writing "slave owner" on the platforms they were on, they toppled them using ropes and dragged them down grassy slopes amid cheers and applause. Grant led the Union Army during the Civil War and thus was a key figure in the fight to end slavery.

However, like Key, he once owned slaves. Serra, an 18th century Roman Catholic priest, founded nine of California's 21 Spanish missions and is credited with bringing Roman Catholicism to the Western United States. He is also blamed by many Native Americans for the destruction of their culture and the decimation of several tribes. Work crews are removing two Confederate statues outside the North Carolina state capitol in Raleigh, the morning after protesters toppled two nearby statues.

News outlets reported Saturday that crews were removing one statue dedicated to the women of the Confederacy, and another placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy honoring Henry Wyatt, the first North Carolinian killed in battle in the Civil War. Both statues stood for over a century. It was not immediately clear who ordered the removals.

On Friday night, protesters pulled down two statues of two Confederate soldiers that were part of a larger obelisk. Earlier in the evening police had thwarted a previous attempt to topple the statues. Bu after the officers cleared the area, protesters mounted the obelisk and were able to take down the statues. The statues were dragged down the street. One was strung up by its neck from a light post.

A statue of the founder of Rochester, New York, has been vandalized. Anti-racism messages were sprayed on the sculpture of Revolutionary War figure and slave owner Nathaniel Rochester.

The hands of the bronze statue of a seated Rochester were painted red, with "shame" written across the forehead. Other messages around the figure included "stole indigenous lands" and "abolish the police." Mayor Lovely Warren said Friday there's a complexity to recognizing Rochester's role in establishing what became the western New York city. She said the community should discuss "the best way to deal with those figures." The city's new Commission on Racial and Structural Equity could decide. The sculpture was unveiled in 2008 as part of a neighborhood-revitalization effort led by volunteers.

Protesters have toppled the only statue of a Confederate general in the nation's capital Washington and set it on fire. It comes on Juneteenth, the day marking the end of slavery in the United States, amid continuing anti-racism demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Cheering demonstrators jumped up and down as the 11-foot (3.4-meter) statue of Albert Pike - wrapped with chains - wobbled on its high granite pedestal before falling backward, landing in a pile of dust. Protesters then set a bonfire and stood around it in a circle as the statue burned, chanting, "No justice, no peace!" and "No racist police!" Eyewitness accounts and videos posted on social media indicated that police were on the scene, but didn't intervene.

President Donald Trump quickly tweeted about the toppling, calling out D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and writing: "The DC police are not doing their job as they watched a statue be ripped down and burn." After the statue fell, most protesters returned peacefully to Lafayette Park near the White House. Democratic members of Nevada's congressional delegation are renewing a proposal to remove a statue of former Nevada Sen. Patrick McCarran from the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall, saying that he left a "legacy of racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia." Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto and Reps. Steven Horsford, Dina Titus and Susie Lee made the request in a letter to Gov. Steve Sisolak and legislative leaders.

The letter says McCarran supported workers' rights and helped shape the air travel industry, but his statue should be replaced with one of a person who better represents Nevada's values "as a compassionate, diverse and welcoming state." Speaking before several hundred people gathered at the site of the white-on-Black rampage 99 years ago, the Rev. Al Sharpton took on President Donald Trump directly. He referred to Trump's tweet Friday morning of a warning about any "lowlifes" showing up against his rally Saturday.

"It's lowlifes that shoot unarmed people, Mr. President," Sharpton said. "You couldn't be talking about us, because we fought for the country when it wouldn't fight for us." He challenged Trump's lasting campaign slogan. "Make America great again - give me the date that America was great for everybody," Sharpton said. "Greatness is when Blacks and whites and Latinos and Asians and original Americans take the streets all over this country and march against your tear gas" and threats to call out the military to squelch protests, Sharpton said. "That's when you make America great.

"Look over here in Greenwood tonight. This is what is great tonight," Sharpton said..

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)