RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — After years of resistance and a long court battle, one of America’s largest monuments to the Confederacy was being pulled from its prominent perch in Virginia’s capital city Wednesday.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the Richmond statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee taken down last summer, citing the pain felt across the country over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck. But until a recent court ruling cleared the way, Northam’s plans had been tied up in litigation.
The statue, a 21-foot bronze equestrian sculpture that sits atop a pedestal nearly twice that tall, has towered above a prominent residential boulevard named Monument Avenue since 1890 in this former capital of the Confederacy.
Crews began work before 8 a.m. Wednesday. Two public viewing areas were set up, with only limited visibility. A crowd of about 200 people chanted “What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now!” as a work crew dwarfed by the size of the statue strapped red and blue harnesses to the Lee figure and his horse. The workers were lifted up to the statue on platforms.
The state brought in a deconstruction crew surrounded by a heavy police presence to strap the statue to a crane. State, capitol and city police officers closed streets for blocks around the state-owned traffic circle in Richmond, using heavy equipment and crowd-control barriers to keep crowds away. The Federal Aviation Administration granted the state’s request to ban drone flights during the event, which will be livestreamed through the governor’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.
“This is a historic moment for the city of Richmond. The city, the community at large is saying that we’re not going to stand for these symbols of hate in our city anymore. And it was important for me to be here to see this historic moment,” said Rachel Smucker, 28, a Richmond resident who was at the viewing site early Wednesday with her sister.
Smucker, who is white, said she moved to Richmond around three years ago. It was her first time living in the South, and she found Monument Avenue “jarring.”
“I’ve always found it to be offensive, as a symbol of protecting slavery and the racism that people of color still face today,” Smucker said.
