The US state of Virginia has removed all statues of Confederate leaders from the Capitol building in Richmond, Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn said in a statement on Friday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th July, 2020) The US state of Virginia has removed all statues of Confederate leaders from the Capitol building in Richmond, Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn said in a statement on Friday.
"Removal of the {General Robert] Lee Statue and Confederate busts began last evening and was completed this morning," Filler-Corn said, adding that other artifacts had been removed.
Filler-Corn said the presence of the monuments in the Old House Chamber in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, had served as "a painful reminder of the deep-rooted wounds of slavery."
Calls for the removal of Confederate monuments have grown in recent months amid a nationwide anti-racism movement ignited by the May 25 killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.
But several recent attempts to remove such artifacts in Virginia have ignited controversy, protests and counter-protests, as well as drawn-out legal battles, with some residents arguing that the state's history, though checkered, should be preserved.
Filler-Corn did not announce the removal in advance, thereby averting any protests or legal challenges to the move.
"Virginia has a story to tell that extends far beyond glorifying the Confederacy and its participants. The Confederacy's Primary objective in the Civil War was to preserve an ideology that maintained the enslavement of human beings," she said in the statement. "Now is the time to provide context to our Capitol to truly tell the commonwealth's whole history."
Along with the statue of General Robert E. Lee, Filler-Corn ordered the removal of other artifacts recognizing Confederate leaders including Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson and Jefferson Davis.
