Statues of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson removed in Charlottesville
Crowd CHEERS as workers use cranes to remove statues of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson in Charlottesville – four years after deadly Unite The Right rally rocked the city
- Monument of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was erected in Charlottesville in 1924; monument of Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson was erected in 1921
- Both statues were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997
- A push to remove the monuments – which critics claim were built to intimidate African Americans and glorify white supremacy – began in 2016
- In 2018, a Circuit Court judge ruled the statues met classification as ‘memorials for Civil War veterans’ and, as such, were protected by Virginia law; the Virginia Supreme Court overturned that ruling in April
- On Saturday, both monuments will be taken down and placed into storage
Crowds cheered as workers removed statue of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday morning following a contentious four year legal battle.
The 26-foot tall bronze monument to Gen. Lee – which has stood in the city’s Emancipation Park since 1924 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997 – was the first to be taken down, shortly after 8am.
Meanwhile, the bronze statue of Gen. Jackson – completed in 1921 by renowned sculptor Charles Keck – was hoisted off it base in nearby Jackson Park around 10am.
Both Lee and Jackson were slave owners who fought against the abolition of slavery in the US Civil War. Their statues will now be placed in storage.
A push to remove both monuments began in 2016, and subsequently prompted white nationalists to organize a ‘Unite The Right’ rally in the city in August 2017. The event culminated in the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer who was run down by a car driven by James Fields, who was jailed for life in June 2019 for the murder.
Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker gave a speech shortly after dawn decrying white supremacy.
Jubilant locals lined the road to watch the statues be loaded onto the trays of trucks before they were driven away. Several spectators wore Black Lives Matter t-shirts and hugged one another as the historic sculptures were hauled off to a storage facility.
The 26-foot-tall bronze statue of General Robert E. Lee was removed from its base shortly after 8am Saturday, evening a four-year-long legal battle
Meanwhile, the bronze statue of Gen. Jackson – completed in 1921 by renowned sculptor Charles Keck – was hoisted off it base in nearby Jackson Park around 10am
Crowds cheered in celebration, while others including Tanya and Evance Chanda (pictured) appeared overwhelmed with emotion
Jubilant locals lined the road to watch the statues be loaded onto trucks before they were driven away
Crowds cheered as workers removed a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday morning
Work is underway to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia following a contentious four year legal battle. The monument is seen being hoisted of its base early Saturday morning
The statue of Lee will now be placed into storage until the City Council decides what to do with it
Locals and news crews were kept behind barricades as the historic statue of Lee was brought down after 97 years
Last march through town: The statue, which shows Lee on horseback, was driven through the city as locals lined the roads
One woman wore a Black Lives Matter tank top as she watched the statue of Lee be wheeled away
There was a strong police presence as the monument of Lee was transported away from Emancipation Park. The city is still reeling from the deadly rally in Charlottesville four years ago
The statue of Lee was taken to a storage facility outside of Charlottesville on Saturday morning. It’s unclear how long it will remain locked away. The statue may eventually find itself in a museum
2017: White supremacists are seen gathering under the statue of Robert E. Lee during the Unite The Right rally
The city announced its plans to hoist away the statues Friday. A long, winding legal fight had held up the removal for years.
A coalition of activists commended the city for finally agreeing to remove the statues.
‘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.
The push to remove the Lee monument began back in 2016 with a petition started by black high school student, Zyahna Bryant. A lawsuit was quickly filed, putting the city’s plans on hold.
Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker gave a speech shortly after dawn decrying white supremacy. She was joined by student, Zyahna Bryant who started a petition to remove the monument in 2016
The statue of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson is put into chains and removed with a crane after years of legal wrangling
Crowds clapped in excitements as the giant bronze statue – which was completed exactly 100 years ago – was taken into storage
After the Unite The Right rally in August 2017, both the Lee and Jackson monuments were covered with black tarps on-and-off for a period of six months.
However, in February 2018, Circuit Court Judge Richard E. Moore ordered the tarps to come down. The following year he ruled that both the statues met classification as ‘memorials for Civil War veterans’ and, as such, were protected by Virginia law.
However, the case subsequently went to the Virginia Supreme Court, where they ruled this April that the monuments could be removed.
Many confederate statues were unveiled during the 1920s and 30s, as Jim Crow laws enforcing racial segregation were introduced in the southern United States. Charlottesville’s Stonewall Jackson statue was unveiled in 1921, and the Robert E Lee statue in 1924.
Opponents claim the statues of Confederate generals were not built as memorials, but as a means to intimidate African Americans and glorify white supremacy.
However, supporters say that bids to remove Confederate statues are an attempt to erase history.
‘Oh look let’s put away all the monuments and hide the past, now we won’t ever have to remember it. Insanity…’ one Facebook user complained last year as a separate statue was torn down.
Bryant – whose 2016 petition sparked the movement in Charlottesville – was heartened by Saturday’s removal.
‘This is a crucial first step in the right direction to tell a more historically accurate and complete story of this place and the people who call this place home. The work did not start here and it will not end here,’ Bryant, now a student at the University of Virginia, said in a statement.
Kristin Szakos, who was a City Council member at the time of the deadly Charlottesville rally, said in an interview earlier this week that she was determined to make sure the lessons of 2017 were learned.
‘It really brought up a lot of awareness of white supremacy that is not just from visitors from Idaho, but also from structures in our own culture and in our own institutions that we have to deal with,’ she said.
The statues are not the first to be removed in Charlottesville.
Last September, another monument – which depicted an unnamed Confederate soldier – was taken down from its foundations out front of the Albemarle County courthouse as crowds cheered in approval.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, at least 160 Confederate statues have been taken down since the death of George Floyd sparked widespread protests last summer.
The bitter four-year legal battle over the statues
In February 2017, following a petition started by Bryant, the Charlottesville City Council voted to take Lee’s statue down.
In addition, advocacy from other local leaders and activists, and the work of a commission appointed to study the issue, were also involved in the removal decision.
A lawsuit was quickly filed, putting the city´s plans on hold, and white supremacists seized on the issue.
First, white supremacists rallied by torch-light at the state in May 2017, following a small group of Klansmen in July, far outnumbered by peaceful protesters.
The issue reached a crescendo in August, when white supremacist and neo-Nazi organizers of the ‘Unite the Right’ rally gathered in the city to defend the statue of Lee.
They seized on the issue for publicity, meeting in what was the largest gathering of extremists in at least a decade. They brawled in the streets with anti-racist counterprotesters as police largely stood by and watched.
A short time later, James Alex Fields, Jr – an avowed white supremacist and admirer of Adolf Hitler – intentionally plowed his car into a crowd of people, killing Heather Heyer, 32, and leaving others with life-altering injuries.
Because of the litigation over a state law protecting memorials to war veterans, Charlottesville´s hands were tied.
2017: A push to remove both monuments began in 2016, and subsequently prompted white supremacists to organize a ‘Unite The Right’ rally in the city in August 2017 (pictured). The event culminated in the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer who was run down by a car
2017: A group of white activists participate in a torch lit march through the University of Virginia campus ahead of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville back in August 2017
2017: White supremacist groups and counter protestors clashed during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville
Although the city government still wanted Lee’s statue gone, and voted to remove the nearby Jackson statue, the pair of monuments had to stay in place.
A judge prevented the city from even shrouding them with tarps.
After Democrats took control of the General Assembly in the 2019 elections, the monument-protection law was rewritten a year later. Since then, local governments across the state have removed statues that stood for a century or more.
Charlottesville, however, was waiting for the resolution of the lawsuit, which came in April, when the state´s highest court sided with the city.
Since that ruling, the city government has been working its way through the requirements of the new law, like holding a public hearing and offering the statue to a museum or historical society for possible relocation.
The offer period for Charlottesville´s statues ended Thursday.
So far, ten responses have been received and the city remains open to ‘additional expressions of interest,’ according to Friday’s news release.
Under the new law, the city has the final say in the statues’ disposition.
Heather Heyer (left) was killed by white nationalist, Alex Fields Jr (right), while counter-protesting in Charlottesville in August 2017
In August 2017, white supremacists marched on Charlottesville to protest the removal of Confederate war monuments across the south
A separate statue of Confederate General Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson will also be removed in Charlottesville on Saturday afternoon