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Posts tagged as “Robert E. Lee”

Statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee Finally Removed from Richmond, VA, Former Capital of the Confederacy

Statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee Finally Removed from Richmond, VA, Former Capital of the Confederacy

By goodblacknews on September 8, 2021

This morning in Richmond, VA, capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War, its top general was finally cut down. His statue, that is.

Erected in 1890, a full 35 years after he surrendered at Appomattox, the statue of Robert E. Lee was removed from its downtown perch to chants of “Na Na /Hey Hey /Goodbye”, the last of six confederate statues to come down on Richmond’s Monument Avenue.

To quote from nytimes.com:

At 8:54 a.m., a man in an orange jacket waved his arms, and the 21-foot statue rose into the air and glided, slowly, to a flatbed truck below. The sun had just come out and illuminated the towering gray pedestal as a small crowd on the east side of the monument let out a cheer.

“As a native of Richmond, I want to say that the head of the snake has been removed,” said Gary Flowers, a radio show host and civil rights activist, who is Black and was watching the activity. He said he planned to celebrate on Wednesday night and would tell pictures of his dead relatives that “the humiliation and agony and pain you suffered has been partly lifted.”

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam had planned to remove the Lee statue in June 2020 in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the following protests, but faced legal challenges from a group of Richmond residents.

Protesters toppled the monument erected of Confederate President Jefferson Davis that same month, and in July 2020 Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney invoked his emergency powers to remove other Confederate monuments, such as those honoring Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Gen. J.E.B. Stuart.

In an opinion issued last week, the Virginia Supreme Court dismissed the Lee statue case, saying that all the plaintiffs’ claims were without merit, and dissolved injunctions the lower court imposed, paving the way for today’s statute removal.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee Statue Removed From U.S. Capitol Building

Confederate General Robert E. Lee Statue Removed From U.S. Capitol Building

By goodblacknews on December 22, 2020

[Photo: Workers removing a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington. | Jack Mayer/Office of Governor of Virginia]

According to huffpost.com, the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was removed from the U.S. Capitol early Monday morning.

The statue has been one of two representing Virginia (every state gets two; Virginia’s second is of George Washington) in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall since 1909.

There is already a movement to replace Lee’s statue with one of Black civil rights activist Barbara Johns, who led an all-Black student walkout to protest school segregation in 1951.

To quote from the huffpost.com article:

In July, the Commission for Historical Statues in the United States Capitol ― an eight-member commission tasked with deciding whether to recommend the removal of Lee’s statue from the Capitol ― unanimously voted to have the monument removed.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D), who had testified before the commission in favor of the removal, called the moment an “important step forward for our Commonwealth and our country” in a statement on Monday.

“The Confederacy is a symbol of Virginia’s racist and divisive history, and it is past time we tell our story with images of perseverance, diversity, and inclusion,” he said.

Earlier in December, the eight-member commission voted to replace Lee’s statue with one of Johns, whose organizing and ultimate court case later became one of the five cases reviewed in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision.

The statue of Johns must be approved by the state’s General Assembly, according to Gov. Northam’s office.

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/robert-e-lee-statue-us-capitol-removed_n_5fe0af61c5b6e5158fa8f910

One Down, Two To Go: Charlottesville Removes “At Ready” Confederate Statue Near 2017 White Nationalist Rally Site

One Down, Two To Go: Charlottesville Removes “At Ready” Confederate Statue Near 2017 White Nationalist Rally Site

By goodblacknews on September 13, 2020

Yesterday, city workers in Charlottesville, VA brought down a Confederate statue near the site of a violent white nationalist rally three years ago, where dozens were injured and one woman, Heather Heyer, was killed when a self-avowed white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of people protesting the rally.

The removal of the bronze figure of a Confederate soldier known as “At Ready,” is what is being seen in Charlottesville as a milestone in eliminating oppressive symbols of the Civil War from public properties shared by all taxpayers.

According to the Washington Post, Albemarle County supervisors voted earlier this summer to take down “At Ready,” even though the statue was not the focal point of the 2017 rally, but a block away from the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups said they were defending in the clash.

Washington and Lee University Replaces Slaveholder’s Name On Building With John Chavis’, the 1st Black U.S. College Graduate

By goodblacknews on November 25, 2018
Bust of John Chavis at Washington & Lee University (photo via columns.wlu.edu)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

According to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, the Board of Trustees at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA, will make changes to two of its buildings, Robinson Hall and Lee Chapel, after a student and faculty committee issued a report on how the university’s history is represented on campus. The committee was created after White supremacists rallied at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville last year.

Robinson Hall was originally named for John Robinson, a founder of the university. When Robinson died he left his estate, farm, and 73 slaves to the college. In 1836, the college sold the slaves and used the money to build Robinson Hall.

The board decided to rename the building Chavis Hall, in honor of John Chavis, the first African-American to receive a college education in the United States. He graduated from the university’s predecessor – first Liberty Hall Academy, then Washington Academy – in 1799.

Additionally, the university will make changes to Lee Chapel. The university will replace the portraits of Robert E. Lee and George Washington in military uniforms with new portraits of the two men in civilian clothing.

Also, the doors to the statue chamber in Lee Chapel will be closed during university events. However, Lee Chapel will keep its name. Robert E. Lee is buried below the chapel.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe to White Nationalists: ‘There is No Place for You in America… Shame on You… You Are Anything But A Patriot’

By goodblacknews on August 12, 2017

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (photo via variety.com)

by Ted Johnson via Variety.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe condemned the white supremacists whose rally in Charlottesville, Va. led to clashes and at least one death, telling the Nazi marchers that “there is no place for you here. There is no place for you in America… Shame on you. You pretend that you are patriots, but you are anything but a patriot,” he said.
McAuliffe appeared at a press conference in Charlottesville in the aftermath of the bloody confrontations on the street. Earlier in the day, he declared a state of emergency to assist authorities in the city in controlling the situation. Police said that a 32-year-old woman was killed as she was crossing the street and a car was driven into a crowd of counter-demonstrators. The driver of the vehicle has been apprehended and the case is being treated as a criminal homicide, with 19 more injured in the incident. Police have not released the name of the victim or the suspect.
State police also are investigating a helicopter crash that occurred in a wooded area near Charlottesville that occurred just before 5 p.m. ET on Saturday. A spokeswoman confirmed that two people were killed in the crash, but did not verify if the helicopter belonged to the Virginia State Police. Throughout the day, cable news networks played shocking and even chilling images of neo-Nazis and white nationalists marching in the streets of Charlottesville as they were protesting plans to remove a statute of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. They quickly clashed with counter-protesters before police declared an unlawful assembly and ordered them to disburse.
McAuliffe said that he spoke with Trump on Saturday and twice told him that “there has got to be a movement in this country to bring people together. The hatred and the rhetoric that has gone on and it’s intensified over the last couple of months is dividing this great nation.” Trump, too, responded with tweets and a statement calling for unity, and condemning “in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.”
But he faced criticism for not specifically calling out the white supremacists or citing the car crash. Some members of Trump’s own party called on the President to specifically cite the Charlottesville tragedy as a terror attack, or to call out white nationalists.
To read full article, go to: Virginia Governor to White Nationalists: ‘No Place for You Here’ | Variety