Sharp cultural divides over racism, history and police violence took center stage at the first public hearing on Mayor Jim Kenney’s proposal to remove a statue of Christopher Columbus from a South Philadelphia park. For more than five hours, a diverse cast of Philadelphians debated over Zoom the city’s case for removing the statue — a conversation that began with the city’s Public Art Director Margot Berg’s argument for the move.

Berg cited recent incidents of violence beginning on June 13, when a group of people, some armed with rifles, baseball bats and other weapons, surrounded the Marconi Plaza statue. The individuals, many of them white men who described themselves as neighborhood residents, said they were there to protect the icon after heated Black Lives Matter protests at a subsequently removed statue of former mayor Frank Rizzo and elsewhere in the city.