— Derrick Lewis (@DerrickQLewis) August 14, 2017
Chanting "No KKK! No fascists! USA," several protesters can be seen tugging on a rope to pull down the 15-foot-tall statue dedicated to "the boys who wore the gray" seconds after a woman climbed atop the structure.
— XTINA (@xtina_town) August 14, 2017
"It needs to be removed," Loan Tran, an organizer for the protest, told local news station WNCN. "These Confederate statues in Durham, North Carolina, all across the country."
— Jonah Kaplan (@KaplanABC11) August 14, 2017
Tran added that their removal of the statue was a direct response to the violence that broke out at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, this weekend.
Depicting a soldier who fought in the Civil War, the Durham statue's inscription read, "The Confederate States of America."
— Derrick Lewis (@DerrickQLewis) August 15, 2017
"People can be mobilized and people are angry and when enough people are angry, we don't have to look to politicians to sit around in air conditions and do nothing when we can do things ourselves," Takiyah Thompson, one of the attending activists told the station.
Not the first incident involving the monument, the 93-year-old statue was previously spray painted a few years back.
Despite the brewing controversy, Durham County spokeswoman Dawn Dudley said the county "is prohibited from removing or making substantive alteration to historical monuments and memorials" due to a North Carolina law that was passed in 2015.
The damage or destruction of public property can lead to a Class 1 misdemeanor under the Tar Heel state's law, and if convicted, can receive a fine of $500 and 24 hours of community service.
According to the Division of State Historic Sites and Properties, there are roughly 120 Civil War memorials across the Old North state — about a dozen are dedicated to Union soldiers with another 100 linked to the Confederacy.
