In Birmingham, Alabama, comedian Jermaine Johnson is pleading not guilty to charges of “inciting a riot” after he urged protesters at a May 31 rally to march on a statue of Charles Linn, a former officer in the Confederate Navy.

Jermaine Johnson: “Three blocks over, in Linn Park, we’ve got a Confederate statue sitting in the middle of our city to remind us to stay in your damn place.”

Protesters went on to topple the Charles Linn statue, while vandalizing the nearby Confederate Sailors and Soldiers Monument. Birmingham officials later removed the monuments, erected fences around downtown parks and ordered a ban on protests — including nearby Kelly Ingram Park in the Birmingham Civil Rights District. The park is adjacent to the 16th Street Baptist Church, where four African American girls were killed by a white supremacist bomber in September of 1963.