Statues of two Confederate generals were removed from Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday.
According to apress release, the statues will be placed in storage and the stone bases left in place to be removed at a later date.
Charlottesville is looking to relocate the statues to a museum, historical society, government, or military battlefield and has received ten expressions of interest over the past month that are all under review, the release stated.
“(Removing the statues) is one small step closer to the goal of helping Charlottesville, Virginia, and America grapple with its sin of being willing to destroy Black people for economic gains,” Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker told reporters before the Lee statue was removed, according to CNN.
She continued, “It is my hope that we stop taking these steps in 100-year increments and increase the frequency (of) bold daily action and critical examination of accurate history, even when it denounces whiteness as supreme.”
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The move comes nearly four years after the Robert E. Lee statue was the focus of aright-wing rallythat left 32-year-old Heather Heyer dead.
In August of 2017, white nationalists marched through the streets of Charlottesville in protest of the city’s original plan to remove the statue. The rally was met with severe backlash and white nationalists violently clashed with a large number of counter-protesters during the event.
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Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency in response to the violence and declared the rally illegal. Afterward, a 20-year-old man authorities identified as James Alex Fields Jr.drove his car into a group of anti-racist counter-protesters, killing Heyer and injuring at least 19 people.
source: people.com
