WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he will issue an executive order regarding U.S. historical monuments, as the movement to remove statues and other memorials activists consider racist gains momentum across the country, part of wider national protests over racial injustice.
Many of the statues and monuments targeted by crowds in recent weeks pay homage to the rebel Confederacy from the nation’s Civil War. Democrats and other critics say such symbols wrongly honor those who perpetuated slavery. Calls to take them down follow a wave of protests after the May 25 death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man killed in police custody in Minneapolis, that has sparked ongoing demonstrations and calls to address racism in policing and other reforms.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Susan Heavey; Writing by Lisa Lambert and Chizu Nomiyama)
