HOUSTON (AP) - The left hand has been lopped off a 7-foot (2.1-meter) statue of Christopher Columbus that’s been a repeated target of vandals in a Houston park.
The vandalism was discovered Thursday night in Houston’s Bell Park. Besides the severed hand, a noose was left around the statue in what was the second attack on it in as many nights.
Red paint was found splashed on the hands and face of the statue Wednesday night. A cardboard sign was left behind saying, “Rip the hand from your oppressor.”
The statue was donated to the city in 1992 by the Italian-Americans Organizations of Greater Houston.
Columbus is regarded recently as the origin of European enslavement of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Columbus statues have been toppled or defaced around the world. A statue of Columbus was toppled and burned in Richmond, Virginia, earlier this week. A statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in the one-time capital of the Confederacy also was toppled.
Protesters also have decried monuments to slave traders, imperialists and explorers, including Cecil Rhodes and Belgium’s King Leopold II.
Many Confederate symbols and monuments have been damaged or brought down by demonstrators and removed by local authorities since the death of George Floyd, an African American man whose death has become a worldwide symbol in demonstrations calling for changes to police practices and an end to racial prejudice.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced Thursday that two statues of Confederate figures would be removed from Houston city parks.
A statue of a Confederate soldier called “Spirit of The Confederacy” will be moved from Sam Houston Park downtown to the Houston Museum of African American Culture. A statue of Richard W. “Dick” Dowling, a Confederate artillery commander prominent in the naval victory against two Union vessels in the Battle of Sabine Pass, will be moved from Hermann Park to the Sabine Pass Battleground State Historical Site near Port Arthur.
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