On Sunday, demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama, attempted to take down a hated 115-year-old Confederate statue. Late Monday, the mayor stepped in to finish the job they started. The 52-foot-tall Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument has cast its shadow over Linn Park in the city’s center since 1905. But TheWashington Post reports that demolition crews began taking it down late Monday on the orders of Mayor Randall Woodfin. “In order to prevent more civil unrest, it is very imperative that we remove this statue,” Woodfin told the Birmingham News. The statue has been at the center of a legal fight between the city and the state attorney general’s office, and Woodfin acknowledged Monday that Alabama could now bring another lawsuit against the city. The demonstrators successfully toppled a nearby statue of Charles Linn, a Confederate Navy captain, during their Sunday night gathering.
