Whipping post removed from US courthouse square

An 8-foot (2.4 meters) tall whipping post was removed from a Delaware county courthouse square Wednesday after activists said the post was a reminder of racial discrimination.

The post outside the Sussex County Courthouse in Georgetown was removed after an hour and a half of excavation and put in storage unit with other historical artifacts, news outlets reported.

A crowd gathered to watch the post being removed, including Diaz Bonville, who said he brought his 8-year-old granddaughter.

"I wanted her to be witness today and it's a history lesson for her because she had never heard of a whipping post", he said.

The Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs said the post was used to bind and whip people publicly for committing crimes up until 1952.

However, Black people were disproportionately punished, according to the historical group.

A book published in 1947 by Robert Caldwell, a former sociology professor in the state, said more than 60% of those beaten between 1900 and 1945 were Black, The Delaware News Journal reported.

At that time, Black people made up less than 20% of Delaware’s population.

The state-owned post was put on display outside the courthouse by the Georgetown Historical Society in 1993, nearly two decades after Delaware outlawed state-sanctioned public floggings outside local jails and prisons.

It was the last state to abolish the whipping post, news outlets reported.

Delaware Heritage Commission vice-chairwoman Dr. Reba Hollingsworth says the post will go to a museum.

She also says she saw it used to punish a man when she was a child, growing up in Dover, Delaware.

"He was shackled to the post, actually facing it like this, bare back, bare from the waist, down to the waist and this man was standing there with this cat o' nine tails and he was whipping him and count each whip."

The post's removal is part of nationwide movement reassessing displays of monuments that represent racism and oppression.

Removal of Confederate monuments and symbols of racism were sparked by protests over the death of George Floyd and other Black victims.