Toppled statues amid anti-racism protests

In this video, we take a look at all the monuments with links to colonialism and slavery that have either been defaced or pulled down as protests for racial justice continue around the world.

The Confederacy was a group of American states that ceded from the Union in 1860 to preserve the institution of slavery.

They were defeated by the United States in 1865 leading to the abolition of slavery.

Protests following the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis. have targeted dozens of the 771 Confederate statues and monuments in the US.

And statues across the United Kingdom which commemorate slave owners and slave traders from the UK’s colonial past are also being removed.

Statues of colonialists, such as the explorer Christopher Columbus whose “discovery” of the US in 1492 led to the genocide of Native Americans, have been vandalised, as has a statue of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, whose policies contributed to the 1943 Bengal famine. 

A monument to King Leopold II of Belgium whose colonisation of the Congo killed more than 10 million, and tortured, enslaved and starved millions of others, has been removed.

This report was produced and edited by Al Jazeera NewsFeed’s Adam Adada.