Removing 2 Confederate statues could cost city $700K

In 2016, officials in Charlottesville, Virginia estimated that removing the city’s two Confederate statues, of General Robert E. Lee and General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, would cost about $700,000. The city also faced the risk of legal costs, because Virginia law at the time protected war memorials from being removed. Here is the story of the two statues and what eventually happened to them.

The Lee and Jackson Statues

Both statues were gifts to the city from Paul Goodloe McIntire, a Charlottesville native and philanthropist. The statue of Stonewall Jackson on horseback was dedicated in 1921 near the county courthouse. The statue of Robert E. Lee on his horse Traveller was dedicated in 1924 in a downtown park. Both were considered fine works of art and stood for nearly a century.

The Legal Fight

When the city council voted in 2017 to remove the Lee statue, a group of residents, along with the Sons of Confederate Veterans, sued. They argued that state law protected war memorials, and a judge agreed for a time. The parks were renamed, and the statues were covered with tarps while the case went on.

In 2020, the Virginia General Assembly changed the law to let cities remove their monuments. In April 2021, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in the city’s favor, and both statues were taken down in July 2021.

What Happened to the Statues

The Jackson statue was given to a Los Angeles art museum. The Lee statue was given to a local African American heritage center, which had it melted down in 2023 to make a new work of public art. For many heritage supporters, the melting of a century-old statue of Robert E. Lee was a painful end to a long fight.

Read more about General Lee in our posts Did R.E. Lee Have Any Regrets? and General Eisenhower on Robert E. Lee, and honor Virginia’s soldiers with a flag from our Confederate flag collection.

Source: Associated Press: Removing 2 Confederate statues could cost city $700K

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