Workers remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee on July 10 in Charlottesville, Va. The original plan to remove the statue four years ago sparked the infamous “United Right” protest where 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed.
Win McNamee / Getty Images
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Workers remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee on July 10 in Charlottesville, Va. The original plan to remove the statue four years ago sparked the infamous “United Right” protest where 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed.
Win McNamee / Getty Images
That statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee used to stand in downtown Charlottesville, Va., will be melted down and turned into a public art project after receiving approval from the city council this week.
Debate over deregulation helped spark the Solidarity Right protest in August 2017, a new deadly Nazi rally where a man drove his car into a protesting crowd, killing one person. The final rule has been taken down in july.
As a few cities in the South removed Confederate monuments and symbols, there were discussions about what to do with monuments.
In Charlottesville, the Jefferson School’s American Heritage Center, a local Black-led nonprofit, will take over the project, dubbed “Swords Into Plowshares.” The group says creating the artwork will help engage the Charlottesville community on how inclusion can be expressed through art and public spaces.
“Our hope with ‘Swords into Plowshares’ is to create something that can turn what was once malicious in our public spaces into something beautiful that can reflect more social values of our entire community,” Andrea Douglas, the center’s executive director, said in a statement.
“We are giving people the opportunity to interact with our stories and our own history. This project provides a road map for other communities to do the same.”
One of those communities might be the state capital, Richmond. What to do with the city’s colossal Lee statue, which was removed in September, remains a question.
After deciding to remove it was caught up in legal battles in Virginia Supreme Court, the statue was eventually dismantled – a process that involved cutting through the statue – and taken down, and stored in an undisclosed location.
Governor Ralph Northam decided to keep the statue’s pedestal at the time. But on Sunday, he announced The 40-foot pedestal is also about to be lowered, a process he said will be completed by the end of the year.
