2 Confederate statues were removed in Georgia within 3 days

By Hollie Silverman and Melissa Alonso, CNN

Updated 5:29 AM ET, Sun February 7, 2021

(CNN) -- Two Confederate statues were removed from public locations in the state of Georgia this week. ... This comes as cities across the nation have grappled with how to handle statues of historical figures with troubling pasts, including Confederate generals, slave owners and colonizers.

As calls for social justice rang out throughout the country following the death of George Floyd at the hands of former Minneapolis Police officers, many monuments were vandalized, spray painted or even torn down by the public. ... One such vandalism was the catalyst for the removal of the Confederate monument that stood outside the Gwinnett County Courthouse in Lawrenceville.

The stone monument, inscribed with "1861-1865 Lest We Forget" and installed in 1993, was removed and put into storage Thursday, according to CNN affiliate WXIA. ... Lawrenceville, about 30 miles northeast of Atlanta, is the county seat of Gwinnett County.

The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners voted in January to have the monument moved into storage until court proceedings were finished determining its fate, a press release from the board said last month.

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