Rallying for rights: Protesters marching on Friday in Brooklyn, New York City, to mark Juneteenth.AFPANGELA WEISS
Protesters in Washington toppled a statue of a Confederate general late on Friday, after nationwide rallies to demand racial justice on a day heavy with symbolism — the Juneteenth holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.
Demonstrations were held in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington against a backdrop of weeks of protests fuelled by the deaths of African Americans at the hands of police. In a stark illustration of the tensions roiling the nation, President Donald Trump issued a solemn White House statement commemorating Juneteenth, while also threatening protesters on Twitter ahead of his controversial rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday.
End of slavery
Juneteenth marks the day — June 19, 1865 — when a Union general arrived in Galveston, Texas and informed slaves that they were free — two months after the Civil War had ended and two-and-a-half years after president Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
The date is generally celebrated with prayer services and family gatherings, but comes this year amid a national soul-searching over America’s legacy of racial injustice.
Late on Friday, a statue of Confederate general Albert Pike was torn down by demonstrators in the capital and set on fire, in an act labelled a “disgrace” by Mr. Trump. Earlier, several thousand demonstrators marched across New York’s Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan, chanting the names of black men and women killed by police in recent years.
Protesters in Atlanta, where a police officer was charged with murder this week for shooting a black man in the back, marched on the Georgia State Capitol.
More gathered in Washington outside the Lincoln Memorial and near the White House, while thousands marched in Chicago and danced at festive rallies in South Los Angeles.
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