The US City of New York has announced it would remove a statue of former US President THEODORE ROOSEVELT long criticized as a racist and colonialist symbol.

The decision comes with the United States gripped by widespread protests against racial, with demonstrators tumbling down a number of statues of sculpture figures with racist legacies.

The bronze of ROOSEVELT, which has been at the entrance of the American Museum of Natural History for 80 years, depicts the former leader on horseback towering over a black man and a Native American man who are both on foot.