George Washington and Gen Lee plaques stripped from Virginia church

THE church where George Washington once worshipped is removing a plaque honouring the memory of America’s first president in the latest example of historic monuments affecting contemporary US politics.

Officers at Christ Church, in Alexandria, Virginia, said they were removing the Washington plaque as well as one for Gen Robert Lee, who rose to the head of the Confederate army during the Civil War. “The Vestry has unanimously decided that the plaques create a distraction in our worship space and may create an obstacle to our identity as a welcoming church, and an impediment to our growth and to full community with our neighbours,” they said in a letter to the congregation.

Washington was one of the congregation’s founding members in 1773, paying for pew number five, while Gen Lee’s daughter left the church $10,000 (£7.6000) in her will.

The two plaques, paid for by city residents, have hung on either side of the altar since soon after Gen Lee’s death in October 1870.

But local authorities across the US have removed a string of Confederate statues and memorials from public places in recent years.

Critics say there is no place in modern America for symbols associated with racism and slavery. The issue is highly charged. One person died in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August when counter-protesters clashed with white nationalists protesting against the removal of a statue of Gen Lee.

The controversies prompted Donald Trump to ponder whether Washington, who owned slaves, would be targeted next. His remarks caused outrage among liberal opponents who argued that Washington, who was born in 1732 and died in 1799 and secured American independence from Britain, and lived before the abolitionist movement came into being, could not be compared to the confederate general.

In its letter church officers said: “We understand that both Washington and Lee lived in times much different than our own, and that each man, in addition to his public persona, was a complicated human being, and like all of us, a child of God,” they wrote.