Battle over Confederate statues enters courtroom
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — For all the fiery debate aroused by public memorials to the Confederacy, a lawsuit seeking to block this city from removing statues of two Southern Civil War generals led to dry courtroom arguments Friday over obscure provisions of Virginia law, with a judge declining to decide whether to throw out the legal challenge.
One of the statues, of Robert E. Lee, has stood in a city park for 93 years and was the focal point of violent clashes last month involving hundreds of white supremacist demonstrators and counterprotesters. The other statue, of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, is on public land nearby. Together they have become the latest epicenter in a national debate over the propriety of civic monuments honoring the Confederacy and how the history of the Old South should be interpreted.
Several plaintiffs, including the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, sued Charlottesville in March, shortly after the City Council, by a 3-to-2 vote, decided to remove the two hulking bronze sculptures. On Friday, Judge Richard Moore, of Charlottesville Circuit Court, listened as a lawyer for the city argued the lawsuit should be dismissed.
About a hundred spectators crowded into Moore's courtroom, anticipating definitive action by the judge. Moore said he hopes to issue a ruling in two to three weeks, "but that might be overly optimistic."
One of the plaintiffs, B. Frank Earnest, referring to his many Confederate-soldier ancestors, said in an interview, "this is all about family."
To Northerners in the 1860s, he said, the Civil War, "was like Afghanistan," meaning a far-off con- flict, while to Southerners, "it was about defending our towns, our homes." During a break in the hearing, glancing across the courtroom at Lisa Robertson, the lawyer handling the case for the city, Earnest said, "This is about punishing us for our ancestors."
Robertson and her boss, City Attorney S. Craig Brown, declined to comment.
No matter the outcome of Friday's legal arguments, the proceeding is unlikely to be the final round in the fight about the statues.
If Moore sides with the city and throws out the lawsuit, the Sons of Confederate Veterans and its coplaintiffs, including a descendant of the Lee sculptor, could ask a state appeals court to review the ruling. In that event, lawyers said, Charlottesville might be barred from removing the statues during the appeal, although it is possible a higher court would decline to hear the case.
If Moore rejects the city's motion to dismiss the matter, a date could be set for a trial before the judge, perhaps weeks or months from now.
Opponents of Confederate memorials across the South point out most were installed not immediately after the Civil War but in the late 1800s and early 20th century, amid the rise of Jim Crow laws and a post-Reconstruction resurgence in antiblack violence. They argue the monuments amounted to revisionist history, an effort to reassert white supremacy and give an aura of nobility and heroism to the long-lost secessionist cause.
Echoing like-minded heritage organizations, the Sons of Confederate Veterans asserts on its website the memorials rightly honor "the tenacity" of the South's "citizen-soldiers." The Confederacy waged "the second American revolution" not primarily in defense of slavery but to protect "the underpinnings of our democratic society," meaning states' rights. "The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor," the group contends.
Charlottesville's Jackson statue was erected in 1921, and the Lee statue went up three years later. In February of this year, Charlottesville joined many other American communities in deciding to get rid of conspicuous memorials to the Confederacy. The council voted to sell each statue to the highest bidder and require the buyer to arrange and pay for the removal.
Outside the courthouse, about 30 activists opposed to the statues chanted racial justice slogans on the sidewalks, holding signs that read, "TAKE THEM DOWN," "END HATE" and "NO MORE JIM CROW."
Several police officers stood calmly in a corner of the building's portico, keeping dry as a light rain fell. There were no demonstrators in support of the monuments.