After years of protests, counter-protests and litigation, the monuments to Confederate leaders Robert Lee and Stonewall Jackson in Charlottesville, Virginia may soon be toppled from their pedestals.
The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the law prohibiting the demolition of military monuments cannot be retroactively applied to monuments to Confederate leaders erected in the 1920s. “The law does not give the city authorities the right to erect these monuments and does not prohibit them from moving them,” the court ruling says.
In 2017, thousands of white chauvinists and members of other far-right organizations staged protests in Charlottesville against the city council’s decision to demolish a monument to Robert Lee. Municipality officials welcomed the court’s decision and promised to “re-plan” the park, which now houses the monuments, in order to “promote racial reconciliation and better cover the city’s history.”
Newspaper headline:
Erasing memory …