Statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee comes down in Virginia
- One of the largest Confederate monuments in the US, it will now be stored at an undisclosed state-owned facility until a decision is made about its future
- Governor Ralph Northam ordered the statue’s removal last summer, citing nationwide pain over the death of George Floyd
A crowd erupted in cheers and song Wednesday as workers hoisted one of the nation’s largest Confederate monuments off a pedestal where the figure of General Robert E. Lee towered over Virginia’s capital city for more than a century.
The statue was lowered to the ground just before 9am, after a construction worker who strapped harnesses around Lee and his horse lifted his arms in the air and counted, “Three, two, one!” to jubilant shouts from hundreds of people. A work crew then began cutting it into pieces.
“Any remnant like this that glorifies the lost cause of the Civil War, it needs to come down,” said Governor Ralph Northam, who called it “hopefully a new day, a new era in Virginia”. The Democrat said the statue represented “more than 400 years of history that we should not be proud of.”
Sharon Jennings, an African-American woman born and raised in Richmond, said she had mixed feelings seeing it go.
“It’s a good day, and it’s a sad day at the same time,” said Jennings, 58. “It doesn’t matter what colour you are, if you really like history, and you understand what this street has been your whole life and you’ve grown up this way, you’re thinking, ‘Oh, my God.’ But when you get older, you understand that it does need to come down.”