The statue had stood on the courthouse’s manicured lawn since 1924, when the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected it. At the time, it had been 59 years since the Civil War ended. The smell of tobacco wafted out of warehouses and factories and across downtown Durham, and a mile and a half down Main Street, tiny Trinity College hadn’t yet changed its name to Duke University. For 93 years, the Confederate picket watched over all who entered the building. And then, in a matter of seconds, he was gone, irreparably destroyed by his fall: his musket mangled, his legs bent forward, and a huge dent in his head from some zealous protester’s boot.

By the time I arrived, less than an hour after the statue had fallen, the street was blocked off by sheriff’s deputies’ cars. The protesters had marched a few blocks down Main Street, toward where the Durham Police Department is building a controversial new headquarters. A mix of young and old, black and white, graying hippies and black-clad anarchists, yelled “Fuck Trump” and held signs saying, “Black Lives Matter” and “The Whole Damn System Is Guilty as Hell.” “Street medics” stood to the side, ready if anyone was hurt. One man toted a guitar, seemingly more as prop than instrument.

There was still an air of euphoria in the crowd. Everyone seemed amazed how easily the statue had come down. For most Americans, the mention of a statue being toppled immediately conjures footage of the Saddam Hussein statue pulled down in Firdos Square in Baghdad in 2003, early in a war that had probably radicalized a few of the demonstrators in Durham. The Confederate soldier hadn’t required a long process or the help of a tank—just a good tug and he’d come right down. Even stranger, no police had intervened, even as the protesters brought out a rope and a ladder. Sheriff’s deputies had just watched.

David A. Graham / The Atlantic

Having reached the police station, the crowd seemed unsure what to do and went back to the courthouse. One particularly energetic man walked up to the police cars, carrying a “Cops and Klan Go Hand in Hand” placard taunting them. Deputies seemed determine not to so much as make eye contact, much less engage. When another man got too close, a deputy shooed him away. Meanwhile, several other deputies, wearing body armor, were filming everything. (“Get my good side!” the man with the “Cops and Klan” placard demanded.) The rumor in the crowd was that officers had decided it was easier to film the crowd and make arrests later than to try to intervene in the moment.

Finally, at about 8:30 p.m., a deputy demanded that everyone disperse. A few of the more hardened protesters, apparently members of a local anarchist group (they were, unsurprisingly, unwilling to give their names or declare an affiliation) herded the remainder away down the street, warned that people not so much as jaywalk lest they give officers a pretext for arrest, and then made sure that no one was walking back to a car alone, lest police quietly arrest them.