Virginia’s statue of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee was removed from its post in the US Capitol on Monday morning, closing a year that saw Confederate statues toppled as the nation reckoned with racism in its history and institutions.
In April, the month before the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis would set off worldwide protests against racism and police brutality, Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia signed legislation directing the creation of a commission to study the removal and replacement of the statue.
States are each allotted two statues to display in the US Capitol; Virginia’s other statue is of George Washington.
The commission’s eight members voted 24 July to recommend the removal of the Lee statue, which will be turned over to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture in Richmond.
The statue will be replaced with one of Barbara Johns, who as a 16-year-old defied school segregation in Virginia in 1951, Mr Northam said. The governor, a Democrat, called her “a trailblazing young woman of colour” who would inspire visitors to the Capitol to “create positive change in their communities, just like she did.”
Mr Northam said in a statement Monday that the move was an “important step forward for our commonwealth and our country.” Senator Tim Kaine, was present for the statue’s removal and tweeted a video of workers hoisting it down at 4:02 am.
The House of Representatives, in a bipartisan vote of 305-113, moved in July to purge the Capitol of Confederate statues. In June, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered that the portraits of four House speakers who had served in the Confederacy be removed.
Ms Pelosi said in a statement Monday that the removal of Virginia’s statue was “welcome news,” noting that in her first term as speaker Congress removed the statue from National Statuary Hall, an ornate section of the Capitol where a select 35 statues are displayed. The statue of Lee was in the Capitol crypt, directly beneath the rotunda, when it was taken away, Mr Kaine said.
In June, Northam ordered the removal of another statue of Lee, in Richmond. The order was challenged by local residents, but a state judge ruled in October that the monument could be taken down.
That statue, on Monument Avenue, became a site of protest during the summer, with images of Harriet Tubman and George Floyd projected on it. The statue’s base was marked with graffiti and messages like “Stop killing us” and “Defund the police.”
The removal of yet another Lee statue, in Charlottesville, Virginia, was opposed by white supremacists who held a rally in 2017 that led to the killing of a counterprotester, Heather Heyer.
A white supremacist, James Field, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison for driving his car into a crowd, killing Heyer and injuring others.
At the time, President Donald Trump said of the rally that there had been “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides”. White supremacists praised his comments.
Mr Trump had threatened to hold up this year’s defense authorisation bill over a provision – which had garnered strong bipartisan support – to strip the names of Confederate leaders from military bases.
