Alabama mayor who tore down confederate monument in his city faces lawsuit

Only rubble remains of Birmingham’s 115-year-old confederate monument after mayor’s promise

Alabama’s attorney general has brought legal action against Birmingham mayor Randall Woolfin after he dismantled a confederate monument in the state’s largest city amid protests against institutionalised racism and police brutality across the US.

State Attorney General Steve Marshall announced on Tuesday that he had filed a new lawsuit against Birmingham over the mayor’s decision on Sunday night to topple the confederate monument.

Mr Marshall warned that the monument's removal from Linn Park "would violate the law and that I would fulfill my duty to enforce it."

The state’s memorial preservation law, passed in 2017, states that the attorney general must enforce penalties against all violations that would damage monuments, memorials and other historic structures.

Mr Marshall wrote that moving the 115-year-old Confederate Soldiers and Sailors monument in Birmingham would have necessitated a waiver.

Without one, Mr Randall is set to be issued with a one-time $25,000 (£19,772) penalty, which would then go to the state’s Historic Preservation Fund.

Mr Randall promised crowds on Sunday night that he would "finish the job" of pulling down Birmingham’s tallest confederate monument, after demonstrators toppled and defaced other statues

The mayor defended his decisions on Wednesday, when he told the Today show that his move to dismantle the monument was to reduce tensions among those protesting George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis police custody last week.

"I chose my city to avoid more civil unrest," said Mr Woolfin. "It's probably better for this city to pay this civil fine than to have more civil unrest."

It comes almost three years after Mr Woolfin’s predecessor, William Bell, was also threatened with legal action when he ordered the same monument to be covered amid violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

Demonstrations since George Floyd’s death have escalated the removal of, and discussion around, confederate monuments in numerous states, where most consider the memorials to be outdated and racist relics of the past.