Charlottesville Removes Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson Statues

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA — The statues of Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson were removed from their pedestals in Charlottesville Saturday, bringing cheers from crowds that had gathered to see them lifted by cranes to be carted off to storage.

Charlottesville police had blocked off the streets around the two parks where the Confederate statues stood with fencing and heavy trucks.

Earlier attempts to remove the Lee statue from the Charlottesville park where it had stood since the 1920s were halted by lawsuits. White supremacist and neo-Nazi groups also used the city's efforts to remove the Lee statue to organize white nationalists across the country.

The campaign to keep the Robert E. Lee statue in place culminated in the violent "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, 2017.

On the night before the rally, hundreds of white supremacists marched through the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, holding torches and chanting “You Will Not Replace Us,” a white supremacist slogan calling for the preservation of the white race and white cultural history.

The next day, James Fields Jr., a white nationalist who had traveled from Ohio to Charlottesville, participated in the "Unite the Right" rally before driving his Dodge Challenger directly into the crowd of protesters. His car struck numerous people, killing Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old Charlottesville woman, and injuring several more people.

On Saturday, Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker gave a speech in front of reporters and observers as the crane neared the monument.

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“Taking down this statue is one small step closer to the goal of helping Charlottesville, Virginia, and America, grapple with the sin of being willing to destroy Black people for economic gain,” Walker said.

A handful of people opposed to removing the statues gathered at the parks. But there was no organized presence of protesters near the Downtown Mall area of Charlottesville where the statues stood.

Only the statues, not their stone pedestals, were removed Saturday. The statues will be stored in a secure location until the Charlottesville City Council makes a final decision about what should be done with them.

Under state law, the city was required to solicit interest from parties who would want to purchase the statues during an offer period that ended Thursday. The city received 10 responses to its solicitation.

A coalition of activists commended the city for moving quickly to take the statues down after the offer period ended. As long as the statues “remain standing in our downtown public spaces, they signal that our community tolerated white supremacy and the Lost Cause these generals fought for,” the coalition called Take ’Em Down Cville said.

This story includes reporting from the Associated Press.

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