The mayor of Washington, D.C., pushed back against protesters who recently tore down a Confederate statue and vandalized other monuments.
Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said on Thursday that there should be a discussion about what to do with the statues rather than a “mob” mentality toward them.
“This is what I think we need to do with statues … is to have a reasonable conversation on statues and other historical figures. Not have a mob decide they want to pull it down and certainly not destroy anything in the District and set it on fire,” she said. “So my first response to you is, we need to maintain safety and order around statues.”
The remarks come after a statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike was torn down by demonstrators and set ablaze in the District last Friday. Police reportedly looked on as the protesters tore down the statue of the Confederate general. On Monday, police clashed with demonstrators near the White House after they attempted to topple a statue of former President Andrew Jackson.
DC’s congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton said on Tuesday that she wants to have a “problematic” statue of former President Abraham Lincoln removed from Lincoln Park, and an activist group calling for its removal is working to organize a Friday demonstration.
“Although formerly enslaved Americans paid for this statue to be built in 1876, the design and sculpting process was done without their input, and it shows. The statue fails to note in any way how enslaved African Americans pushed for their own emancipation,” Norton said in a Tuesday statement, noting that she would introduce legislation to attempt to get it taken down.
