FALLS CHURCH, Va. — Virginia’s highest court ruled Thursday that the city of Charlottesville can take down two statues of Confederate generals, including one of Robert E. Lee that became the focus of a violent white nationalist rally in 2017.a Circuit Court decision in favor of a group of residents who sued to block the city from taking down the Lee statue and a nearby monument to fellow Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. Charlottesville’s city council voted to remove both.
Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker thanked the community “for their steadfastness and perseverance over the past five years. For all of us, who were on the right side of history, Bravo!” The 1997 law “did not provide the authority for the City to erect the Statues, and it does not prohibit the City from disturbing or interfering with them,” Goodwyn wrote.
The Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., and The Monument Fund, Inc., also were plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed against the city in March 2017. The 1997 law that barred local governments from removing Confederate statues was repealed in 2020, after Democrats gained control of the General Assembly in the 2019 elections. Since then, local governments across the state have removed statues that stood for a century or more.