A monument depicting a Confederate soldier was taken down Monday night from the pedestal it once stood on in Hemming Park, just outside Jacksonville City Hall.

The confederate statue in Hemming Park is gone. A historic moment for the city of Jacksonville. The mayor is expected to talk today at 10 a.m. pic.twitter.com/tXZvWPTksA

— Hannah Lee (@HannahLeeNews) June 9, 2020

City Hall was the scene for a protest Tuesday morning led by Jaguars’ running back Leonard Fournette and rapper Lil Duval, which mayor Lenny Curry attended and spoke at.

“We’ve got to find a way to come together,” Curry said. “We’re not going to agree on everything – that’s just not human history, human nature. We’ve got to find common ground.”

Just hours before the protest, city crews were seen using a crane to remove the statue, according to News4Jax.

At the peaceful demonstration, Mayor Curry followed by announcing that the other Confederate monuments in the city will also be taken down.

He said he had been thinking of removing them for “some time” but especially in the last few  days.

Statues devoted to Confederate troops have been issues of contention in recent years. 

Citizens in multiple cities protested for their removal in 2017 after a ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia turned violent.

In 2018, a group called Take ‘em Down Jax organized a 40-mile “March for Change” from Downtown Jacksonville to St. Augustine, urging the cities to remove the statues, calling them symbols of hate.

Jacksonville’s City Council held multiple discussions regarding removing the statues, but none were successful.

There have been no announcements on what will happen to the statues once they come down.

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