U.S.

University Of Texas Removes 4 Confederate Statues Overnight

The statues of four prominent Confederate figures have been removed from a main area of the University of Texas' Austin campus.

University Of Texas Removes 4 Confederate Statues Overnight
Pompeo Coppini
SMS

The University of Texas at Austin removed the statues of four prominent Confederate figures from the campus's Main Mall.

The university's president announced Sunday night the statues of Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, John Reagan and James Stephen Hogg were being taken down.

A spokesperson told The Texas Tribune workers completed the job overnight "for public safety and to minimize disruption to the community."

Why Confederate Monuments Exist In The First Place
Why Confederate Monuments Exist In The First Place

Why Confederate Monuments Exist In The First Place

Confederate monuments were erected to remember the Confederacy, but they were also used to intimidate black Americans in the 20th century.

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Three of the statues will be moved to the school's Briscoe Center for American History. The university's president said he'll consider reinstalling the fourth somewhere else on campus.

The decision to remove the statues came a little more than a week after violent protests broke out in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue there.

Since then, several cities moved to take down their Confederate-era monuments — including Baltimore, Maryland, and Madison, Wisconsin.

And Duke University removed a statue of Lee from its campus over the weekend.