2 Shifting landscapes and the monument removal craze, 2015–20

Abstract

ABSTRACT In response to the 2020 murder of George Floyd amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, protestors, government officials and institutional leaders removed Confederate monuments in the American South at a staggering pace. After extending their gaze to Christopher Columbus, Edward Colston and other monuments, additional removals and promises for removal and/or renaming occurred across the United States and the world. This third wave of the Confederate monument removal craze created an urgency to document and visualize its scope. Drawing on her Monument Removals mapping project, Green provides the numbers, context and spatial understanding of the recent revision to the commemorative landscape in the United States and global Black Lives Matter responses. Anti-black violence has shaped the removal trends from the Charleston Massacre to George Floyd. With over 240 monuments removed in the United States, the third (post-George Floyd) phase, moreover, represents a significant corrective that cannot be easily dismissed, just as the global anti-racist responses cannot be ignored. Green contends that additional scholarly attention is required, especially with regard to the history of monuments and the power dynamics influencing removal. Since communities are still engaged in the revision process, the resulting work has consequence for communities and scholars.