Baltimore, MD - In the dark of night on August 21, 2017, protesters attacked a memorial commemorating Christopher Columbus. The memorial is the oldest monument to Columbus in North America and is one of three in Baltimore. The video shows an individual explaining why he is destroying the plaque commemorating Columbus. He says: “Christopher Columbus symbolizes the initial invasion of European capitalism into the Western Hemisphere. Columbus initiated a centuries-old wave of terrorism, murder, genocide, rape, slavery, ecological degradation and capitalist exploitation of labor in the Americas. That Columbian wave of destruction continues on the backs of Indigenous, African-American and brown people. “Racist monuments to slave owners and murderers have always bothered me. Baltimore’s poverty is concentrated in African-American households, and these statues are just an extra slap in the face. They were built in the 20th century in response to a movement for African Americans’ human dignity. What kind of a culture goes to such lengths to build such hate-filled monuments? What kind of a culture clings to those monuments in 2017?” The protest deepens the actions against the culture that glorifies white supremacy and the racism that allowed for the ethnic cleansing of Indigenous Peoples as well as the African slave trade, which treated people as property." For more information, visit www.PopularResistance.org

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