Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials

More than 160 Confederate monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America (CSA; the Confederacy) and associated figures have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but three of them since 2015. Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.

Over seven hundred monuments and memorials have been created on public land, the vast majority in the South during the era of Jim Crow laws from 1877 to 1964. Efforts to remove them began after the Charleston church shooting and later increased after the Unite the Right rally and the murder of George Floyd.

Most modern historical analyses agree that the monuments largely were not built as memorials or for historical preservation; instead, they were built to intimidate African Americans and reaffirm white supremacy after the Civil War; and that they memorialize an unrecognized, treasonous government, the Confederacy, whose founding principle was the perpetuation and expansion of slavery. The presence of these memorials more than a hundred years after the defeat of the Confederacy would continue to disenfranchise and alienate African Americans.

According to The Washington Post, five Confederate monuments were removed after the Civil War, eight in the two years after the Charleston shooting, 48 in the three years after the Unite the Right rally, and 110 in the two years after George Floyd's murder. In 2022, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he would order the renaming of U.S. military bases which are named after Confederate generals, as well as the renaming of other Defense Department property that honors Confederates. The result was the Defense Department's Naming Commission of 2021-22.

The campaign to remove monuments has been extended beyond the United States; around the world, many statues and other public works of art which are related to the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism have been removed or destroyed.