Statue of Frank Rizzo, Former Philadelphia Mayor, Is Removed After Protests
The city of Philadelphia on Wednesday morning took down a statue of the former mayor Frank Rizzo, a champion of conservatives who aggressively policed black people and gay people in the 1960s and ’70s, and whose likeness has long been criticized as a symbol of racism and oppression.
The statue, which sat on the steps of a municipal services building, had remained in Center City for more than two decades since its unveiling in 1999. It was often vandalized, and protesters in recent days have tried to take it down and light it on fire.
“The statue represented bigotry, hatred, and oppression for too many people, for too long. It is finally gone,” Mayor Jim Kenney tweeted early Wednesday.
At a morning news conference, Mr. Kenney said that the statue was already scheduled to be removed — in 2021, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. But he said the protests showed that the statue “had to go away for us to understand where we need to go to look forward.”
