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The grave monument was commissioned in 1912 and relocated to Garfield Park in 1928 following efforts by public officials active in the Ku Klux Klan to make it more visible, Hogsett said.

\"Whatever original purpose this grave marker might once have had, for far too long it has served as nothing more than a painful reminder of our state's horrific embrace of the Ku Klux Klan a century ago,\" the mayor said. \"For some time, we have urged that this grave monument belongs in a museum, not in a park, but no organization has stepped forward to assume that responsibility. Time is up, and this grave marker will come down.\"

If the injunction is lifted, the Richmond monument could join the fate of an Alexandria monument honoring Confederate soldiers that came down last week.

\"Some said this day would never come,\" Alexandria City Councilman John Chapman said on Facebook last Tuesday. \"The confederate statue at Appomattox is starting to be taken down. We, our community made this happen.\"

A Confederate monument in a Birmingham, Alabama, park was also removed last week after it was damaged in weekend protests, local ABC News affiliate WBMA reported.

\"PHOTO:
Brian Snyder/Reuters
PHOTO: The head of a statue of Christopher Columbus was pulled off overnight amid protests against racial inequality in the aftermath of the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd in Boston, June 10, 2020.
>

Confederate monuments in Bentonville, Arkansas, and Rocky Mount, North Carolina, also will soon be taken down.

Columbus, Frank Rizzo statues also targeted

Confederate monuments aren't the only targets of vandalism recently.

This week, statues of Christopher Columbus were vandalized in two cities as protests reignited the debate over the controversial European explorer.

In Boston, a statue of Columbus in the city's North End was beheaded early Wednesday morning, according to police. The statue would be removed and put in storage while the damage was assessed, Mayor Marty Walsh told ABC affiliate WCVB.

\"PHOTO:
Matt Rourke/AP
PHOTO: Police and protesters stand near a vandalized statue of controversial former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo, May 30, 2020 in Philadelphia, during protests over the death of George Floyd.
>

Down in Richmond, protesters tore down a Columbus statue, set it on fire and then threw it into a lake Tuesday night, police said.

In Philadelphia, a statue of former mayor Pete Rizzo near City Hall was removed last week, following vandalism. Many saw the statue of the former police commissioner as a symbol of police brutality.

\"The statue represented bigotry, hatred, and oppression for too many people, for too long,\" Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said on Twitter. \"It is finally gone.\"

In the wake of the statue's removal, a mural of Rizzo in the city's Italian Market also was painted over on Sunday.

It was not just in the United States that statues that symbolized racism were taken down. In Bristol, United Kingdom, protesters tore down a statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston on Sunday. The protesters dragged the statue through the streets and then threw it into the river.

ABC News' Dee Carden, Benjamin Stein and Whitney Lloyd contributed to this report.

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