Hundreds of Radicals Tear Down Statue of Ulysses Grant, Man Instrumental In Ending Slavery, Fighting KKK

AP featured image — Protesters gather around Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square during the Black Lives Matter protest rally in London, Sunday, June 7, 2020, in response to the recent killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, USA, that has led to protests in many countries and across the US. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

How crazy has the Monument Mob gotten?

Radical leftists went after one of the people most instrumental in ending slavery last night on Juneteenth, the day celebrating the day the last slaves were freed.

Ulysses Grant was the 18th president of the United States but also the leader of the Union Army who helped to defeat the Confederacy.

About 400 people went to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco last night and pulled down his statue that was featured there. They also tore down the statues of St. Junipero Serra and Francis Scott Key, the author of the lyrics for the “Star Spangled Banner.”

Here they are toppling Grant’s statue:

#BREAKING: Demonstrators topple statues in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. @hurd_hurd will have details on our News at 11. https://t.co/RvmlMqu73s pic.twitter.com/iUZE28AvdD

— NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) June 20, 2020

All that’s left of Francis Scott Key here in Golden Gate Park pic.twitter.com/2Gf0qjTgys

— Joe Rivano Barros (@jrivanob) June 20, 2020

In taking out Grant, their actions showed how little what they’re doing has to do with slavery.

As History.com observes:

Grant pushed for a 15th amendment, which would guarantee federal and state voting rights to all male citizens regardless of “race, color or previous condition of servitude.”

Most dramatically, Grant used both federal troops and the newly established Justice Department to fight terrorism against Southern blacks, particularly by the Ku Klux Klan, which had grown into a large and formidable force in the years after the Civil War. “By 1872, under Grant’s leadership,” Chernow writes, “the Ku Klux Klan had been smashed in the South,” although another group of the same name would emerge in 1915.

“To him, more than to any other man, the Negro owes his enfranchisement,” Frederick Douglass remarked after Grant’s death. “When red-handed violence ran rampant through the South, and freedmen were being hunted down like wild beasts in the night, the moral courage and fidelity of Gen. Grant transcended that of his party.” Chernow concludes that, “Grant deserves an honored place in American history, second only to Lincoln, for what he did for the freed slaves.”

Frederick Douglass eulogized Grant “a man too broad for prejudice, too humane to despise the humblest, too great to be small at any point. In him the Negro found a protector, the Indian a friend, a vanquished foe a brother, an imperiled nation a savior.” https://t.co/FMFPHyTTab

— Michael Needham (@MikeNeedham) June 20, 2020

When he died, Grant was eulogized and prayed for in black churches, according to Historynet.com.

Those for whom Grant fought didn’t forget him. When Grant died, African-American churches across the country prayed for his soul. A group of black Union veterans wished him Godspeed on his final journey. “In General Grant’s death,” they resolved, “the colored people of this and all other countries, and the oppressed everywhere, irrespective of complexion, have lost a preeminently true and faithful defender.”

Grant defeated the confederates yet they destroy his statue

It has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter and it never did

These lunatic leftists are hijacking the protests and have been calling this a revolution and uprising

They are destroying all culture and history https://t.co/d8C5wWTjwy

— Tim Pool (@Timcast) June 20, 2020

Grant did briefly own one slave he freed years before the war; but as a general he smashed the Confederacy, and as president he crushed the Klan. He presided over the ratification of the 15th Amendment. People going after Grant probably just want to break things. https://t.co/rVtPOcvyAN

— Adam Serwer🍝 (@AdamSerwer) June 20, 2020

He was a “slave owner” in that he was gifted a slave, hated the idea, and freed him within a year. Then won the Civil War, prosecuted the KKK, and appointed African Americans to prominent roles in government.

This might have gotten out of hand. https://t.co/5HdEDgodzm

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) June 20, 2020

Even liberal Matty Yglesias thought this was a step too far.