VIDEO: Protesters in North Carolina topple a statue of a Confederate soldier
More than 100 activists from progressive and anti-fascist groups attended the "Emergency Durham Protest," which culminated with the smashing of the 93-year-old statue, according to Raleigh's News and Observer.
Video of the incident showed the crowd pulling on a rope wrapped around the metal statue until it fell to the ground. Some protesters ran up to the mangled statue and repeatedly kicked it, while others chanted, "The people united will never be defeated."
The incident comes just days after white nationalists convened in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a downtown park. They were met with counter-protests that quickly descended into violent clashes. On Saturday, one woman was killed and several more were injured when a man drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters.
"Charlottesville and racist monuments across the country are the result of centuries of white supremacy," Alissa Ellis, a member of the Workers World Party group that attended the Durham protest, told the News and Observer.
Another protester, Takiyah Thompson, told a local CBS affiliate, "People are angry, and when enough people are angry, we don't have to look to politicians to sit around … and do nothing when we can do things ourselves."