Almost four years after a fatal parade of right-wing extremists in Charlottesville, the controversial statue of Southern General Robert E. Lee has been removed from the US city. TV images showed how the statue was lifted from its pedestal with a crane and loaded onto a truck on Saturday. According to the city, the statue will be stored pending a final decision on its future.
Plans to remove the Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, sparked protests by neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists in the city in August 2017. During racist riots, a female counter-demonstrator was hit by a car and killed. The then US President Donald Trump then caused outrage by saying that there had been “very good people” on both sides.
Robert E. Lee led the Confederates in the Southern Civil War against the Northern States. The southern states, which were largely agricultural at the time, fought vehemently against the abolition of slavery and against more rights for blacks under Lee’s leadership. Lee is glorified as a hero by the far-right scene in the USA. In addition to his monument, a statue of Southern General Thomas J. Jackson was also to be removed on Saturday in Charlottesville.
The city council of Charlottesville had already decided in February 2016 to remove the Lee statue. Years of legal tug-of-war followed. The city renamed the former Lee Park, in which the statue stood, to Market Street Park.