As Trump Adds Fuel to the Fire, Baltimore Removes Confederate Statues in Dead of Night

After President Donald Trump inflamed the national debate over monuments to the Confederacy on Tuesday, telling reporters that white supremacists willing to use deadly violence to defend a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville included some “very fine people,” the City of Baltimore removed four statues honoring the defenders of slavery in the early hours of Wednesday.

Witnesses to the late-night operation, which was completed by 5:30 a.m. local time, shared images and video of workers removing the statues, including a massive one of Lee and Stonewall Jackson in Baltimore’s Wyman Park Dell.

My @wbalradio @BryanNehman video of Lee/Jackson Confederacy-era statue being removed from Balt's Wyman Park @ 3:15a w/ @MayorPugh50 watching pic.twitter.com/aY9gL540Lz

— Scott Wykoff (@ScottWykoffWBAL) August 16, 2017

A couple horses' asses. Bye bye. pic.twitter.com/uZtndhs04r

— baynardwoods (@baynardwoods) August 16, 2017

Baltimore’s mayor, Catherine Pugh, was spotted overseeing the operation just before 3 a.m. by Alec MacGillis, a Pro Publica reporter.

Baltimore mayor Cathy Pugh steps out of SUV to watch as crane prepares to lift Confederate monument in dead of night. pic.twitter.com/AN6vQRrFRt

— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) August 16, 2017

Trump accomplishment: the removal of Jackson and Lee after nearly 70 years in Baltimore. pic.twitter.com/MkIDRAxZzq

— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) August 16, 2017

Pugh told The Baltimore Sun that her decision to act quickly was partly an effort to avoid the kind of violence sparked by neo-Nazi protests in Charlottesville, where an antiracist protester, Heather Heyer, was killed by a white supremacist.

A mayoral commission appointed by Pugh’s predecessor had recommended last year that the statues of Lee and Jackson be removed, along with a monument to Roger Taney, the Supreme Court justice who wrote the notorious Dred Scott decision in 1857, ruling that African-Americans could not be American citizens.

Both of those monuments were removed overnight, along with one dedicated to Confederate women and another honoring Confederate soldiers and sailors, which had been doused in blood-red paint over the weekend.

JUST IN— Baltimore removes Confederate-era statues overnight, including this one of Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney. (via @FlyingDogMK) pic.twitter.com/ndNw6QkgMW

— Splinter (@splinter_news) August 16, 2017

Taney monument gone pic.twitter.com/wJFY53sPxj

— baynardwoods (@baynardwoods) August 16, 2017

Confederate monuments removed from their bases, loaded onto flat bed trucks in Baltimore overnight. https://t.co/Q29hfYD7IW pic.twitter.com/guuekSQ3b6

— Sean Welsh (@SeanJWelsh) August 16, 2017

Baltimore's Confederate monuments removed overnight: https://t.co/p2BNI1vmlY Here's how the Confederate Soldiers + Sailors looked 12 hrs ago pic.twitter.com/AR1MaoNOE0

— lori todd (they/them) ???? ?? (@loritodd) August 16, 2017

Pugh acted after activists had vowed to destroy the monuments if the city delayed any longer.

Officials in Durham County, North Carolina, were less inclined to share the viewpoint of antiracist protesters, arresting a 22-year-old woman accused of helping to topple a Confederate statue there, and charging her with rioting and vandalism.

#BREAKING Protesters in #Durham topple confederate monument downtown pic.twitter.com/a3BNIavyxC

— Derrick Lewis (@DerrickLewisTV) August 14, 2017

Trump’s intemperate defense of the white supremacists at a news conference in Trump Tower on Tuesday was widely condemned, but seemed to delight his neo-Nazi supporters, including David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, and Richard Spencer, who coined the term “alt-right” to rebrand white supremacy.

Trump "They had a permit, the other group didn't have a permit"

Yes, white supremacy and slave owners had legal permission too

— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) August 15, 2017

"Very fine people" "…you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists." -Donald Trump https://t.co/tAW5gWzzZ9

— Mathieu von Rohr (@mathieuvonrohr) August 16, 2017

When someone shows you who they are, you believe them. Trump is again letting white supremacists off the hook for #Charlottesville violence.

— U.S. Senator Al Franken (@SenFranken) August 15, 2017

https://twitter.com/DrDavidDuke/status/897559892164304896

I'm proud of him for speaking the truth.

— Richard Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) August 15, 2017

Trump’s latest defense of white supremacists reminded many close observers of his career that his father, Fred Trump, was reportedly arrested at a KKK rally in Queens in 1927.

https://twitter.com/xeni/status/897627421758955520

Top photo: Workers removed a monument to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson from Wyman Park in Baltimore early Wednesday morning.