Loudoun County to remove monument

Confederate statue will be returned to group that erected it

LEESBURG — Another Confederate monument has been targeted for removal in Virginia.

WTOP reports that officials in northern Virginia’s Loudoun County voted this week to return the statue of a Confederate soldier to the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

The statue is slated for removal on Sept. 7 from the government-owned property in Leesburg.

A new law in Virginia allows local governments to decide the fate of war monuments on their property.

Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall, a Democrat, had long argued that the statue was a symbol of systemic racism.

Confederate monuments are coming down throughout the American South in the wake of protests against racism and police brutality. The wave of public sentiment was sparked by the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis.

Many Confederate statues were erected decades after the Civil War, during an era when Southern states were crushing attempts to achieve equality for Black people.