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Which Confederate statues were removed between 2017 and 2020?
Executive summary
Between 2017 and 2020 hundreds of Confederate monuments and related symbols were removed, relocated or renamed across the United States; by October 2020 one tracker counted “over a hundred” removed, relocated or renamed and other research put the multi‑year total at dozens to more than a hundred in that window [1] [2]. Coverage shows removals clustered after two spur events: the 2017 Charlottesville violence and the 2020 George Floyd protests, with municipal actions, state law changes and sometimes protestors themselves producing a complex, uneven record [3] [1].
1. What counts as “removed” — law, protest toppling, relocation
Reporting and compendia treat a range of outcomes as “removal”: government‑ordered dismantling and relocation, legal replacement of statuary in state collections, and extra‑legal topplings by protestors; many lists therefore mix officially moved monuments with those that were vandalized or forcibly pulled down [1] [3]. For example, Albert Pike’s bronze in Washington was pulled down by protestors in June 2020 and later became embroiled in federal orders about restoration — an instance that underscores how “removed” can mean physically toppled or administratively taken down [4] [5].
2. How many were taken down between 2017 and 2020?
Available trackers and reputable summaries give different but consistent impressions: the Southern Poverty Law Center and news aggregations reported that by October 2020 “over a hundred” Confederate symbols had been removed, relocated, or renamed in the year of 2020 alone [1]. Britannica summarised an earlier SPLC count that 59 Confederate statues and nine markers were removed from public land between June 2015 and July 6, 2020 — illustrating that totals depend on start dates and inclusion rules [2]. Other year‑by‑year tallies place 2020 as a spike year; one account says 168 monuments were “nixed” nationally in 2020, reflecting different methodologies [6] [7].
3. Major waves and trigger events: 2017 and 2020
Two clear waves emerge from the sources. After the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, many local governments accelerated removals — New Orleans and Baltimore removed all their Confederate monuments in 2017, and numerous city councils voted for removals that year [3]. The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 triggered a far broader national reckoning; lists compiled during the summer and autumn of 2020 documented widespread removals and topplings across cities including Richmond, Birmingham, and Washington, D.C. [1] [3] [8].
4. Representative specific examples documented in reporting
Sources name many specimen cases across jurisdictions: Richmond’s Monument Avenue statues were targeted and several were removed or toppled during 2020 protests [8]. The Pike statue in Washington, D.C., was torn down by protesters on Juneteenth 2020 and later drew executive‑branch action over its restoration [4] [5]. Cities like New Orleans and Baltimore moved multiple monuments in 2017 as part of their municipal responses [3]. State and local anecdotes — e.g., votes in Demopolis, AL, or Caddo Parish, LA — appear in regional reporting and historical overviews [9] [10].
5. Legal and political backlashes change the landscape
The removals spurred pushback and new laws. Alabama enacted the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act in 2017 to restrict removals; cities that removed monuments sometimes faced legal challenges or fines under such statutes [9]. Conversely, in Virginia a March 2020 law change effectively allowed removals on July 1, 2020, enabling more local action there [1].
6. Methodological limits and why precise lists are hard to produce
Sources use different inclusion criteria (statues, plaques, school mascots, building names, and historical markers), different date ranges, and different definitions of “removed” (official relocation vs. protest toppling), which explains divergent totals and makes a single exhaustive list elusive in these sources [1] [2]. Some compiled lists were still being updated through late 2020; other scholars later expanded counts to include removals stretching back to 2015 or forward into 2021 [2] [7].
7. How to get a specific, authoritative list for 2017–2020
Available reporting suggests two practical next steps: consult compiled trackers cited in news summaries (Southern Poverty Law Center compilations referenced by Wikipedia and news outlets) for machine‑readable lists, and cross‑check municipal press releases or state legislative records for each named removal to confirm dates and dispositions [1] [2]. Current sources do not provide one single authoritative, fully detailed list restricted exactly to 2017–2020; compiling it requires reconciling the different databases and local records [1] [2].
Conclusion: public records and contemporary trackers agree that removals accelerated after 2017 and surged in 2020, producing well over a dozen high‑profile takedowns and at least a hundred removals/relocations by some counts, but precise totals and a single canonical list for 2017–2020 are not uniform across the available sources [1] [2].