The Confederate Memorials in the Center of Richmond, Virginia, Including a 130-Year-Old Statue of Robert E. Lee, Are Coming Down

An infamous bronze monument in
Richmond, Virginia memorializing Robert E. Lee, the commander of
the Confederate Army in the Civil War, will be removed, the state’s
governor announced today. It’s the latest in a string of controversial
monuments to fall amid the protests that have erupted
nationwide in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota
police officer.

“That statue has been there for
a long time,” said Virginia Governor Ralph Northam in a press conference this
morning. “It was wrong then,
and it’s wrong now. So we’re taking it down.”

Northam has instructed the
state’s Department of General Services to remove the statue “as
soon as possible.” It will be put in storage indefinitely while his
administration “work[s] with the community to determine its
future.”

Virginia has more Confederate
monuments than any other state, with Richmond, the capital of the
former Confederacy, being home to five prominent examples alone.
Statues memorializing Confederate leaders such as J. E. B. Stuart,
Jefferson Davis, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson—all of which line the
city’s Monument Avenue—have been targeted by those seeking social
justice reform. 

But the statue of Lee has long
been the most recognizable—and, for many, abhorrent—of the bunch.
It was the first to be erected on the avenue and the only one owned
by the state. Upon its installation in 1890, state laws were put in
place that prevented it from being moved.

The Lee monument came under
increased scrutiny as a symbol of systemic racism and inherited
trauma in 2015, as the discourse over the fate of such
statues was thrust into the spotlight following the Charleston
church shooting. Now, these conversations have reignited. In recent
days, protesters and the local government removed sculptures
marking Confederate history
in Birmingham while, in Philadelphia, authorities de-installed
the 10-foot sculpture of Frank Rizzo, the former police
commissioner-turned-mayor who is bitterly
remembered by the city’s black community for abusive and
racist tactics.

“It’s time to acknowledge the
reality of institutional racism, even if you can’t see it,” Northam
said during the press conference. “Public policies have kept this
reality in place for a long time. But symbols matter too, and
Virginia has never been willing to deal with symbols—until
now.” 

The Lee sculpture has been
vandalized numerous times, including last weekend, as crowds tried
to remove it by force. Protestors also covered the statue with
graffiti and projected onto it an image of Floyd with the words “NO
JUSTICE NO PEACE.”

Yesterday, Richmond’s mayor
Levar Stoney announced that he would introduce an ordinance to
remove all four city-owned Confederate statues along Monument
Avenue on July 1 as well—the same day a new state law goes into
effect granting cities and counties across Virginia the power to
remove their own monuments.

“Richmond is no longer the
capital of the Confederacy—it is filled with diversity and love for
all—and we need to demonstrate that,” Stoney said in a
statement.

The post The Confederate Memorials in the Center of
Richmond, Virginia, Including a 130-Year-Old Statue of Robert E.
Lee, Are Coming Down appeared first on artnet News.