Virginia Officials Announce They’re Tearing Down the Largest Confederate Statue in the Country Tomorrow

After more than a century of towering over Richmond, Virginia’s Monument Avenue, a 12-ton statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee will come down Wednesday. Preparations to remove the controversial statue will begin…

IJR SyndicatedSep 7, 20213 min read

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The statue will go into storage until state officials can figure out what should be done with it.

Andrew Morehead with the Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans said the monument is not just a statue of one man.

“I think the monument to Lee is not necessarily a monument specifically to Robert E. Lee, but I think what it represents, to me and, arguably, what it represented to folks around the turn of the century, was a tribute to all of the soldiers that served very nobly and honorably under General Lee,” Morehead said, according to WRIC-TV.

“It is history, it is something that is very important,” he said.

Morehead said he hopes the monument will go to someone who can display it properly.

“The next step in my eyes is for some type of agreement be made where this monument is given to folks who will preserve it. Place it on private land and have it there in perpetuity, as it was originally intended,” he said.

“Per our charge, we are an organization that is committed to preserving the true history and honor of the American Confederate veteran,” Morehead added. “In that, we don’t need a statue to go look at.”

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The pedestal will remain in place pending a decision on what will be allowed to replace Lee, whose statue was the largest Confederate monument in the country, according to the VaMonument2021 release.

“The statue was installed in 1890, a generation after the Civil War, during the historical movement that sought to undo the results of the war by other means,” the post said.

“Virginia’s largest monument to the Confederate insurrection will come down this week,” Northam said in the release. “This is an important step in showing who we are and what we value as a Commonwealth.”

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, also a Democrat, added, “We are taking an important step this week to embrace the righteous cause and put the ‘Lost Cause’ behind us. Richmond is no longer the capital of the Confederacy. We are a diverse, open, and welcoming city, and our symbols need to reflect this reality.”

The city of Richmond already removed statues of Gens. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart and naval commander Matthew Maury. A statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis was pulled down by a mob of rioters.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.