US protest Photo:AFP

The southern US city of Charlottesville on Saturday took down controversial statues including two honoring Civil War pro-slavery generals which had become the focus of protests.

The statues of generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson are among hundreds of Confederate monuments in the US now widely considered symbols of racism, even if their supporters argue they are a historical legacy.

Workers in the Virginia city used a crane to remove the statues as a crowd watched and cheered. 

No violence was immediately reported.

"Taking down this statue is a step closer to the goal of helping Charlottesville, Virginia, and America, grapple with the sin of being willing to destroy black people for economic gain," Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker, who is African American, told reporters before the monuments' removal.

Tensions over the fate of the Lee statue led to violence in 2017, when a white nationalist drove his car into a crowd of demonstrators in Charlottesville, killing a woman.

Then-president Donald Trump came under fire when he said afterward that there were "very fine people on both sides" of the protests. 

The campaign picked up again following the May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd, an African American killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

"The statue will be placed into storage as the University [of Virginia] continues to work with a committee to determine a suitable location," a school spokesman told AFP.

AFP