CONFEDERATE STATUES STORED AT WASTE FACILITY
Virginia monuments removed in wake of recent protests
At least some of the Confederate monuments that have been recently removed from places of prominence in Richmond, Va., are being stored on the grounds of a wastewater treatment plant, photographs show.
Photos taken this week by The Associated Press and Richmond Times-dispatch show a collection of statues and other large objects under tarps at the facility just outside the city’s downtown.
On July 1, Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the immediate removal of all Confederate statues on city property in Richmond, a onetime capital of the Confederacy. Stoney invoked his emergency powers, citing ongoing civil unrest and concerns that protesters would get hurt if they tried to pull down the enormous statues themselves.
His spokesman, Jim Nolan, did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the storage site Tuesday.
The only Confederate statue that remains on Richmond’s prominent Monument Avenue is a memorial to Gen. Robert E. Lee located on state property. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has ordered that statue’s removal, but it has been at least temporarily blocked by a lawsuit.
The monument removal decisions were made after the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. Floyd’s death sparked global protests against racism and police brutality and led to a re-examination of statues and monuments of historical figures around the world.
The statues’ fate is not currently clear. A new state law that took effect July 1 allows local governments to remove statues on public property. It contains a provision that says the local governing body must offer the monument “for relocation and placement to any museum, historical society, government, or military battlefield” but also says the local government “shall have sole authority to determine the final disposition.”
The City Council has scheduled a public hearing on the future of the monuments Aug. 3, according to the Times-dispatch.
Meanwhile, a Confederate monument that’s long been a divisive symbol at the University of Mississippi was removed Tuesday from a prominent spot on the Oxford campus, just two weeks after Mississippi surrendered the last state flag in the U.S. with the Confederate battle emblem.
The marble statue of a saluting Confederate soldier was taken to a Civil War cemetery in a secluded area of campus. Students and faculty have pushed the university for years to move the statue, but they have said in recent weeks that their work was being undermined by administrators’ plan to beautify the cemetery — a plan that critics said could create a Confederate shrine.
A draft plan by the university indicated that the burial ground will have a lighted pathway to the statue. It also said headstones might be added to Confederate soldiers’ graves that have been unmarked for decades. Ole Miss Chancellor Glenn Boyce said Tuesday that the plan for headstones was being abandoned.