A statue of a Confederate general has been pulled down in Washington DC on "Juneteenth", a holiday dedicated to the end of slavery in the US.
Protesters toppled the 11-foot monument to Albert Pike on Friday evening, before making a bonfire and chanting anti-racist slogans as they watched the statue burn.
Donald Trump lashed out at the demonstrators on Twitter, calling them "a disgrace to our country".
Videos posted to social media showed police were present but did not stop the statue being torn down.
And the president added: "The DC police are not doing their job as they watched a statue be ripped down and burn. These people should be immediately arrested."
Protesters reportedly read out the president's tweet among themselves and cheered.
The statue to Mr Pike, who was a Freemason leader as well as a general, has been controversial. It was paid for by the Freemasons and dedicated in 1901, several decades after the end of the US civil war.
The local legislature said on Friday that they had been trying to get the statue taken down for nearly 30 years.
The DC Council tweeted: “Ever since 1992, members of the DC Council have been calling on the federal gov’t to remove the statue of Confederate Albert Pike (a federal memorial on federal land). We unanimously renewed our call to Congress to remove it in 2017."
This latest incident comes after several statues of historical figures with links to the slave trade were taken down by protesters in recent weeks, including a monument to Edward Colston in Bristol.
The Confederacy was a coalition of southern states who tried to break away from the United States to protect the institution of slavery. This led to the civil war that lasted from 1861-1865, in which as many as one million people may have died.
