BLM Protesters Tear Down Statue of Immigrant Who Lost His Life Fighting Slavery
Statue is latest victim of Black Lives Matter rioters
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A statue of Col. Hans Christian Heg, a Norwegian immigrant who died fighting against slavery, was vandalized before being torn down by Black Lives Matter protesters in Madison, Wisconsin on Tuesday.
The statue is the latest victim in a long list of statues being toppled in the US.
BLM protesters first pulled down the Forward statue, which stands outside the State Capitol, according to Local ABC affiliate WKOW.
The statue was then left in the middle of the road as protesters fled the scene.
The same group of protesters later toppled the Col. Hans Christian Heg statue, which was then thrown into Lake Monona.
Heg was a stark opponent of slavery and fought for the Union during the Civil War.
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The destruction showed Heg’s pedestal with the words “BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL” on it can be seen on various tweets.
Protesters have also torn down the Hans Christian Heg statue outside the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/lTwBOUXQST
— Lance Veeser (@lanceveeser) June 24, 2020
The headless statue was thrown into a nearby lake.
The Hans Christian Heg statue is lying headless in lake Monona. #wkow pic.twitter.com/0grawivgtf
— Michelle Alfini (@MichelleAlf) June 24, 2020
Protesters also damaged a government building, WKOW reported.
Heg was a Republican state prison commissioner, who favored vocational training for convicts.
Col. Heg is described by The Wisconsin Historical Society as follows:
Heg migrated to the United States from Norway as a child in 1840 and spent his youth at Muskego, in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. As a young man, he went to California in the Gold Rush and stayed from 1849-1851. He returned to Wisconsin in 1851 following the death of his parents in order to care for his younger siblings and manage the family farm.
In the fall of 1861, a new Scandinavian regiment was recruited, and Heg accepted appointment as its colonel. The 15th Wisconsin Infantry, made up largely of recent immigrants, went into training at Camp Randall in December and left for the South on March 2, 1862.
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The news comes a week after Black Lives Matter rioters tore down the historic Christopher Columbus statue, despite it sculpted by an Italian immigrant and was presented as a gift for Minnesota’s Italian-Americans.
On Monday, a memorial in California dedicated to survivors of the Holocaust, was toppled and smashed by vandals.
The vandalism of the fountain, which was also used for ritual hand-washing, comes as rioters have destroyed numerous statues across the country in recent days.
Police are investigating the incident at Santa Rosa Memorial Park to determine if it was a hate crime, according to a report by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
The worrying wave of destroyed monuments across the nation in recent days includes statues of three former U.S. Presidents: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson.
Other destroyed statues include numerous Confederate figures, Francis Scott Key, who wrote America’s national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and Father Junipero Serra, a missionary that helped expand the church in California in the 1700s.
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