Jackson, Mississippi votes to remove Andrew Jackson statue from City Hall

Jackson, Miss., which is named after former president and slave owner Andrew Jackson, voted Tuesday to remove a statue of him from City Hall.

The vote was 5-to-1 by the city council, according to The Mississippi Clarion Ledger. 

“We should not have to constantly encounter the likenesses of those who profited off of the blood, sweat, & despair of our ancestors or see them immortalized as honorable,” Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba (D) tweeted.

He said the city wants to “reclaim” its name “and divorce it from the legacy of a brutal owner of enslaved people who was instrumental in initiating the Trail of Tears against indigenous people.”

We should not have to constantly encounter the likenesses of those who profited off of the blood, sweat, & despair of our ancestors or see them immortalized as honorable. pic.twitter.com/UjCPiTeDO2

— Chokwe Antar Lumumba (@ChokweALumumba) July 8, 2020

The timeline for removing the statue has not been determined. It may be relocated to a museum, according to the Clarion Ledger.

Statues of Jackson and other key figures from American history have become controversial due to their past participation in slavery, among other issues.

In Washington, D.C., protesters tried to bring down a statue of Jackson in a park near the White House last month, earning criticism from President Trump, who opposes such statues’ removal. Four men were charged with destruction of federal property.

“These people are vandals, but they’re agitators, but they’re really, they’re terrorists in a sense,” Trump said of protesters seeking to tear down statues in public spaces.

He also signed an executive order strengthening laws to protect statues and monuments, even as protesters topple statues of Christopher Columbus in Baltimore and Ulysses S. Grant in San Francisco.

Multiple cities across the country, as well as internationally, are also removing similar statues after votes by local government.

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) has urged the legal removal of the city’s statue of Jackson.