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Baltimore removed four Confederate statues early Wednesday morning, in the aftermath of the deadly clash in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday, CNN reports.

According to the Baltimore Sun, activist vowed on Tuesday to demolish Confederate statues in the city if officials continued to drag their feet on removing the controversial monuments.

The newspaper said Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh watched the removal in person. In a unanimous vote on Monday, the Baltimore City Council decided to take down the statues after the deadly terrorist vehicle attack by a White supremacist at the Charlottesville rally that killed Heather Heyer, an anti-racism demonstrator.

“They needed to come down,” the mayor stated, according to The Sun. “My concern is for the safety and security of our people. We moved as quickly as we could.”

She told WBAL that some of the monuments are going to Confederate cemeteries. The statues included the Roger B. Taney Monument, and a monument honoring Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.

Taney was the U.S. Supreme Court chief justice who oversaw the court’s Dred Scott decision, which declared that slaves were not citizens of the United States and consequently had no constitutional rights.

Other cities are also trying to prevent violence over the removal of Confederate monuments.

Lexington, Kentucky’s mayor, Jim Gray, announced on Saturday his plan to remove two Confederate statues from the lawn of the former Fayette County Courthouse. In response, White nationalists are organizing a rally in the city, and they plan to file a lawsuit to block the move, the Lexington Herald Leader reported.

SOURCE:  CNN, WBAL, Baltimore Sun, Lexington Herald Leader

SEE ALSO:

Charlottesville: Where Do We Go From Here?

Black Leaders Denounce Violent Charlottesville Rally

Baltimore Quietly Removes Confederate Statues  was originally published on newsone.com