A statue of US President Thomas Jefferson has been removed from New York City Hall over his links to the slave trade.
The 1833 sculpture has been in the New York City Council chamber for more than a century but has now been taken down following a vote last month.
The New York City Public Design Commission decided to dismantle the 7ft bronze statue, after reassessing the legacy of the founding father, who was also a slaveholder.
Image: The statue will be relocated to a museum
Renewed calls to remove the statue came after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year.
Jefferson is the third US President and also appears on the two-dollar bill and Mount Rushmore.
He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, writing "all men are created equal", but he enslaved more than 600 people and fathered at least six children with Sally Hemings, a woman he enslaved.
"Jefferson embodied some of the most shameful parts of our country's long and nuanced history," Adrienne Adams, co-chair of the council's Black, Latino and Asian Caucus, told the commission last month.
"It is time for the city to turn the page and move forward."
Image: The sculpture has been removed following a vote last month
His statue, which has featured in New York's City Hall since 1915, is a replica of a bronze piece by Pierre-Jean David D'Angers, which sits in the US Capitol.
It will now be transported to the New York Historical Society, where it will remain on a long-term loan.
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The artwork will be placed in the museum's lobby gallery for six months before being relocated to the reading room for the duration of the 10-year loan agreement, according to The New York Times.
Similar monuments have become a target of anti-racism protests in recent years, and some other Jefferson statues have already been removed or destroyed, including ones in Oregon and Georgia.
Statues of Civil War Confederate leaders have also been dismantled.
Tim_Trash on November 23rd, 2021 at 15:42 UTC »
Martin Luther King was a womanizer and extreme homophobe. I think we need to tear down every statue and rename every street with his namesake.
.. actually, no I don't think that. That would be just as ridiculous as cancelling Thomas Jefferson
HypeTrainEngineer on November 23rd, 2021 at 14:16 UTC »
Im black. I don't agree with removing the statue at all. To a person even the most staunch abolitionists were still white supremacists by our standard today. You can't condemn people from the past through the lens of the future. George Washington owned slaves do we take his shit down too? Lincoln didn't think blacks were equal to whites even though he freed the slaves. Do we remove Lincoln's shit as well? Where does it end? Its ridiculous
Rudaur on November 23rd, 2021 at 12:43 UTC »
Education is the key. Add a sign saying he did great things but was also kind of a dick in many other aspects. And why we view some of the things he did as not ok through the lens of our age. You can honor and condemn people at the same time from a historical context. Maybe don't try it with Hitler or Pott, but this is surely a case that is perfectly suited for it.
Edit: kind of a dick is putting it very simple indeed. I wanted to keep it civil. It is obvious that many of the things he did were just abhorrent.