A statue of Confederate officer John Breckinridge Castleman has been removed from the Cherokee Triangle in Louisville, Kentucky.
The statue was taken down in the early hours of Monday morning and has been moved to a storage facility. It will later be moved to the site where Castleman, who later served in the United States Army, is buried.
“Although John B. Castleman made civic contributions to Louisville, he also fought to keep men, women, and children bonded in the chains of slavery and touted his role in the Civil War in his autobiography years later,” Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said.
Plans to remove the statue were initially announced in 2018, and the Louisville Metro Landmarks Commission voted to allow the city to make the change in a 5-4 decision last year.
Protests have spread across the country against systemic racism and police brutality. In addition to voicing outrage over the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in Minneapolis police custody, many of the demonstrations also highlighted the death of Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was killed in mid-March when Louisville police conducted a no-knock warrant on her apartment.
The depiction of Castleman is just the latest in a string of statues to be either vandalized or removed in recent weeks. A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, is expected to be removed soon.
