A crowd erupted in cheers and song Wednesday as work crews hoisted an enormous statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E.
Lee off the giant pedestal where it has towered over Virginia's capital city for more than a century.
The piece, one of America's largest monuments to the Confederacy, was lifted away just before 9 a.m. as one of the construction workers who helped strap harnesses to Lee and his horse lifted his arms in the air and counted down, "Three, two, one!" to jubilant shouts from a crowd of hundreds. Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the statue taken down last summer, citing the pain felt across the country over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck. But until a recent court ruling cleared the way, Northam's plans had been tied up in litigation.
"This is a historic moment for the city of Richmond. The city, the community at large is saying that we're not going to stand for these symbols of hate in our city anymore. And it was important for me to be here to see this historic moment," said Rachel Smucker, 28, a Richmond resident who was at the viewing site early Wednesday with her sister.
"We put things on pedestals when we want people to look up," Northam said in June 2020 when he announced the removal plan. "Think about the message that this sends to people coming from around the world to visit the capital city of one of the largest states in our country. Or to young children." A previous wave of resistance to the statues came in 2017 when a rally of white supremacists in the city of Charlottesville erupted into violence. Other Confederate monuments started falling around the country.
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