Crowds watch as the pedestal for the Jefferson Davis Confederate Monument is dismantled and removed. Davis served as the president of the Confederate states during the Civil War. The monument was one of five Confederate monuments that sat on a treelined boulevard aptly named "Monument Avenue". The avenue is lined with affluent homes and until recently, was punctuated with massive Confederate statues. After the death of George Floyd, protesters in Richmond took to the streets. As they called for justice and reform, they also demanded that these structures be removed. The monument was unveiled on June 3, 1907, the birthday of Davis. The monument consisted of a bronze statue of Davis that was surrounded by a colonnade of 13 columns that represented the Southern states. Behind the statue of Davis was a tall Doric column that was topped by a bronze statue, Vindicatrix, which represented Southern womanhood. On the night of June 10, 2020, protesters used rope to topple the statue of Davis that sat atop a pedestal in the middle of the monument's elaborate structure. The statue of Davis, smeared with neon-pink paint and dented, eventually became the centerpiece of an exhibit in a nearby museum. The city's mayor utilized his emergency powers to remove Confederate statues around the city including those on Monument Avenue. Though most statues were removed in 2020, it would take almost two years before crews would begin dismantling the ornate pedestals that the statues had occupied. The pedestals themselves often took weeks to remove.