Protesters in some cities target Confederate monuments over George Floyd killing

Protesters demonstrating against death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who pleed for air as a white police officer pressed his knee on his neck, targeted Confederate monuments in multiple cities.

As tense protests swelled across country Saturday into Sunday morning, monuments in Virginia, Carolinas and Mississippi were defaced. presence of Confederate monuments across South — and elsewhere in United States — has been challenged for years, and some of monuments targeted were alrey under consideration for removal.

words “spiritual gecide,” along with red handprints, were painted on sides of a Confederate monument on University of Mississippi campus Saturday,

Ole Miss ministrators, student leers and faculty leers

Critics have said its display near university’s main ministrative building sends a signal that Ole Miss glorifies Confederacy and glosses over South’s history of slavery.

In Charleston, South Carolina, protesters

In rth Carolina, base of a Confederate monument at State Capitol was marked with a black X and a shorthand for a phrase expressing contempt for police, according to a

question of Confederate monuments has been especially contentious in rth Carolina, where such monuments are generally protected by law.

A nearly two-year battle was wd over fate of “Silent Sam” statue after it was toppled by protesters at University of rth Carolina’s flagship Chapel Hill campus in 2018. A

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper h asked for three Confederate monuments on grounds of Capitol to be moved to a nearby battlefield;

But state where debate over Confederate monuments has perhaps attracted most attention is Virginia, where a 2017 white nationalist rally over Charlottesville's proposed removal of such monuments turned dely.

In coastal city of rfolk, protesters climbed a Confederate monument and spray-painted graffiti on its base, according to

A commission in Richmond, state capital and what was capital of Confederacy, recommended removing one of five Confederate statues along city’s famed Monument Avenue. Photos posted to social media late Saturday and early Sunday showed bases of at least two statues — those of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart — almost entirely covered in graffiti. Nearby, a fire burned for a time at hequarters of United Daughters of Confederacy,

In Tennessee and Pennsylvania, statues of people criticized for racist views, but without Confederate ties were also targeted.