The monument bearing the image of one of the founding fathers of the United States, after having been enthroned for more than a century in the council chamber of the municipality, will be debunked because of its slavery past.
The city of New York approved Monday, October 18 the removal of the statue of Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, who has presided over its council chamber for more than a century, because of his slave past.
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A commission of the city council unanimously adopted the principle of the withdrawal of Jefferson, who was also one of the authors of the declaration of independence of the United States. He held more than six hundred slaves on his plantation in Virginia. He had six children from one of these slaves. The removal of the statue had been requested for several years by Latino and black city councilors, and the statue is now expected to join a New York City Historical Society hall.
Third American President, “Jefferson represents some of the most shameful pages in our country’s long and nuanced historyAfrican-American New York City Councilor Adrienne Adams said.
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The debate on the presence of this statue in the council chamber of the city hall of New York had been revived with the movement Black Lives Matter, born from the death of African-American George Floyd, suffocated under the knee of a white policeman in May 2020 in Minneapolis. After several years of tensions focused on the slavery past of the United States, the most important monument denounced as a racist symbol in the country was debunked on September 8 in Virginia: The gigantic statue of General Lee, the former commander of the Southerners descended from its pedestal after having been enthroned for more than 130 years in Richmond.
While many Confederate monuments across the country were recently disassembled on the sly – sometimes in the middle of the night – under pressure from the Black Lives Matter movement, the Democratic Governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, wanted to give a national impact to this debunking .
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