Justin Bullock, FISM News
Charlottesville has officially removed its Robert E. Lee statue after being the subject of a protracted law suit. The statue along with other Confederate statues across the US have been the subject of extensive and heated debate. The Confederate statues in Charlottesville were specifically controversy following the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville approximately four years ago.
Confederate statues have been removed and placed in storage or destroyed across the country as many people have said that the statues commemorate pro-slavery values. On the other hand, many other people have said that the statues merely represent the history and heritage of the specific individuals enshrined. The debate is ongoing and different localities have taken different approaches to resolving the issue.
Charlottesville already removed the Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson statue, shortly after the infamous protest, in a park nearby the Robert E. Lee statue. The city had scheduled to remove the Robert E. Lee statue as well but a number of citizens led by the Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans sued Charlottesville over the removal in an effort to prevent it. It was not until April of this year that the case was concluded with the city prevailing in its right to remove the statue. For now both statues are sitting in city storage and no plans on what will be done with the statues or the spaces that they vacated have yet been released.