Hate or heritage: The battle over monuments to the Confederacy

WASHINGTON D.C. (KUSI) — The battle over Confederate monuments is being waged in cities and communities across the nation.

For many people, these monuments represent one of the darkest chapters in American history, but to others, they are a reminder of this nation’s heritage.

Overnight in Baltimore, a stark reminder that even that which is set in stone can be removed with enough force.

Statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were among four monuments hauled off into the night on a flatbed truck.

Hours earlier in Birmingham, Alabama, crews put up plywood to obscure a 52-foot obelisk honoring Confederate soldiers and sailors.

All this, just hours after President Trump posed this question: 

"I noticed that Stonewall Jackson’s coming down. I wonder is it George Washington next week and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?"

For Baltimore’s mayor, the answer was simple:

"The Confederacy did not fight to unite this country and we are the United States of America and we should we be focused on how we become a more united, more loving city, state, country," said Mayor Catherine Pugh.

Days after violent protests centered on the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, government officials in at least nine other states are publicly contemplating the fates of their memorials to the Confederacy.

In Durham, North Carolina, some broke the law and took matters into their own hands.

Three have been arrested and the woman accused of vandalizing the monument, Takiyah Thompson, appeared in court.

Back to President Trump’s question, Washington D.C. is a city named after the first, but not the last slave-owning president and statues of Confederate leaders grace the halls of the capitol building.