Protesters Topple ‘Forward’ Statue Outside of Wisconsin State Capitol

AP Photo/Morry Gash
AP Photo/Morry Gash
Hannah Knudsen

Protesters on Tuesday toppled the iconic “Forward” statue outside of the State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, leaving the statue in the middle of a street.

Protesters toppled the statue and dragged it to the middle of the road, pouring baking soda on the face of the figure:

The original statue was installed on the grounds 125 years ago and moved to the north entrance in 1916. The original sculpture was ultimately moved in 1995, eventually finding a home with the State Historical Society headquarters at the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. A bronze replica subsequently took its place outside the State Capitol.

The statue symbolizes is “an allegory of devotion and progress, qualities [sculptress Jean Pond] Miner felt Wisconsin embodied,” per the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Vandals in the area also took aim at a statue of Col. Hans Christian Heg, “an immigrant from Norway who died fighting for the Union against slavery,” as Breitbart News detailed. The words “BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL” could be read on the statue’s base. The statue itself was destroyed, as protesters decapitated it and threw it in a lake:

Chaos continued to unfold in Madison Tuesday as protesters “attacked a state senator, threw a Molotov cocktail into a government building and unsuccessfully tried to break into the Capitol building amid protests following the arrest of a Black man who shouted at restaurant customers through a megaphone while carrying a baseball bat,” according to the AP.

Protesters across the nation have switched gears in recent days, targeting statues and monuments while indiscriminately defacing World War II memorials and statues of the founding fathers in their purported quest for justice.

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