Richmond set to remove statue of Lee

RICHMOND, Va. — A towering statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond is set to come down Wednesday, more than 130 years after it was erected as a tribute to a Civil War hero who is now widely seen as a symbol of racial injustice, state officials said Monday.

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

In Richmond, a city that was the capital of the Confederacy for much of the Civil War, the Lee statue became the epicenter of last summer’s protest movement. The city has removed more than a dozen other pieces of Confederate statuary on city land since Floyd’s death.

The imposing, 21-foot-tall bronze likeness of Lee on a horse sits atop a granite pedestal nearly twice that high in the grassy center of a traffic circle on Richmond’s famed Monument Avenue.

Gov. Ralph Northam announced plans to take down the statue in June 2020, 10 days after George Floyd died under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, sparking nationwide protests against police brutality and racism. The plans were stalled for more than a year by two lawsuits filed by residents opposed to its removal, but rulings last week by the Supreme Court of Virginia cleared the way for the statue to be taken down.

In Monday’s news release, state officials said that preparations for the statue’s removal will began 6 p.m. Tuesday when crews will install protective fencing.