Virginia Ready To Remove Massive Robert E. Lee Statue
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September 8, 20216:59 AM ET
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The statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is bathed in the late sun on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va., Sept. 6, 2021. The statue is due to be removed Wednesday after a ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court. Steve Helber/AP hide caption
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The statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is bathed in the late sun on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va., Sept. 6, 2021. The statue is due to be removed Wednesday after a ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court.
Steve Helber/AP
Wednesday, the state of Virginia is due to remove the 12-ton statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee more than 130 years after it was installed amid efforts to change the collective memory of the Civil War.
Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, announced plans to remove the statue in June 2020, during nightly racial justice protests in Richmond, Va., after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd.
A group of residents from Richmond's historic Monument Avenue then filed suit to keep the 40-foot tall memorial where it is. Last week, the Virginia Supreme Court decided to bring it down.
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Charlottesville Removes Robert E. Lee Statue That Sparked A Deadly Rally
In the decades following its construction in 1890, the statue became a focal point for a wealthy, all-white neighborhood; Lee was later joined by statues to other Confederate leaders. In 1996, a statue of Black tennis champion Arthur Ashe was added to the avenue, despite serious opposition, under the direction of then-Gov. Douglas Wilder, the first Black person to serve as governor of any state since Reconstruction.
Since June 2020, the Lee monument has become a community gathering place for people, many of whom said they might not have ever stepped foot on the property had it not been for the Black Lives Matter protests. To some, the statue of the Confederate general atop a horse and the graffiti-covered pedestal is more of an afterthought now because of how much the plot has transformed in the last 15 months.
Lee's statue is the largest Confederate monument in the City of Richmond, and one of the largest in the country. Nearly every other Confederate statue in the city was removed last summer, either by protesters or the city itself at the request of Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney.
Activists have celebrated the removal of the monument, but have noted it was only one of the demands they've made. They say they'll continue calling for major structural reforms to the state's criminal justice system.
Officials say the statue will be removed early on Wednesday and the graffiti-covered pedestal will remain in place while discussions continue about the future of Monument Avenue.
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The statue is as tall as the good sized apartment building across the street. It's pretty disgraceful that this monstrosity was allowed to stand on an American street for 131 years.
it's too bad that confederate POS didn't catch a mini-ball in the head during the first year of the war.
One of these days Republicans will take hold of Minneapolis, or even the entire state of Minnesota, and the want to take down the statue of George Floyd, a known criminal and con man, will be rightfully overwhelming.
I can't wait to see leftists shit their pants when this day comes.
Democrats are the ones that put that statue up.
Is that the most intelligent thing you can think of to say?
Hear the whistle?
Intelligent?
Not at all.
Well, it is far more intelligent than the three posts directly under that one.
Woof woof, boo
woof woof
I know, he isn't.
Better remove all the dead interred at Arlington as well then
What kind of message has a six story tall statue of Robert E Lee sent to the people of Richmond for the past 130 years?
As all things you see every day, I am sure not many paid any attention to it. [deleted]
Personally I could are less what they do with it but i am a stickler for consistency.
If that statue offends people enough so they want it removed, they should also demand relocation of all those who were honored by internment in Arlington.
This too shall not stand if the statue can't.
If the statue of Lee was buried underground I dont think it would have attracted as much attention.
A cemetery is not the same thing as a celebratory statue.
Great rationalization John but no go.
If people are offended by "things" like the REL statue, they should equally distressed that our honored are being buried on grounds formerly owned by REL. Heck even more distressed if bothered by the thought of REL but i understand. Arlington isn't yet in the sights of the PC triggered but give it time John. Give it time.
The PC craze that some are pushing in this country is nonsense.
100% nonsense.
Keep floundering in your arguments. It is mildly entertaining.
Keep operating in denial my friend.
Unfortunately not entertaining though. Just kinda sad.
There is a HUGE difference between a grave and a monument. Only those who want to conveniently ignore what a massive monument to a General who fought to conserve slavery and all it's vile trappings would think otherwise. Trying to equate buried confederate soldiers to a massive statue of a confederate General is beyond ignorant, it's a blatant display of either woeful ignorance or outright bigotry.
See 2.1.4 .... apply, lather, rinse and repeat as required
Mix in a little 3.1.15 to cover your ending as well.
Not even
This was a huge story on MSNBC and CNN today. Little attention given elsewhere.
It's been a bad month for the many here. Let us grant them their crusade.
So you'd be good with the removal of the Washington Monument? Or are you conveniently ignoring the fact Washington was a slave owner? You seem to conveniently ignore that General Lee was also a UNION Soldier as well.
Here's an idea for you. Since these statues honor the dead move them to a cemetery. Let the dead honor the dead. If nothing else it would be an attraction for visitors.
Great idea. Then the descendants of confederates and those who still cling to its white supremacist ideology can honor their racist heroes while also picking up dates...
I thought they did that at family reunions. . .
meh, just remove the traitors headstones, their buried boxes of bones can go to the nearest landfill...
I'm wondering when the removal of several states and cities is going to happen. Virginia was the capital of the Confederate States. Almost everything south of the Mason Dixon Line was part of the Confederate States. Many southern state flags are representative of at least on version of the Flag of the Confederate States.
It's is a bit pathetic that all the real world issues going on, that the removal of an inanimate object is the hot topic of the day.
Yep, people are triggered by the strangest things these days.
Strange is an understatement. Apparent failure of their education.
Yeah, it's more like a bad dream ....
What is pathetic is that people still feel they should defend the confederacy and Lee.
Ridiculous comment. Perhaps you are a "Lost Cause" er.
article by Ty Seidule , a noted professor of military history at West Point, and a Robert E Lee scholar, is worthy of reading out loud, but for brevity's sake I will just excerpt a few paragraphs.
I know you dont care about facts Tex, but, uh, Ill let you have a few anyway.
Nah what is really pathetic though is people who get their panties in a wad over 100 year old statues and in the same breath fall over themselves to praise a new wall mural of a known violent felon.
That is immeasurably messed up ....
Reminds me of the Che t-shirt kids think are cool today without realizing what an evil fucker that guy was ......
This is not complicated. Lee fought for the right to own other human beings as property. His image does not belong in a position of honor on public property in our country.
I find it far more interesting that so many right wingers believe they should defend him.
Crusades like yours here don't impress me.
Marsupials do.
Cuz they're fast!
Thank you for proving my point.
So he was a Union Soldier. And the left is shitting all over him. (Not that I'm surprised)
In keeping with that spirit, I think that, based on his own past involvement with "black-face" fare, Gov Northam should resign.
When they put up a statue of Northam in blackface you will have a point.
In other words democrats get a pass?
I don't see any principles there. Let us know when progressives stand up for what they "believe."
The principle is that statues of slaveholding traitors to the United States dont belong on American streets.
"But Lee was a product of his times".
OK let him stay in his times.
"But Lincoln, but Washington, but Jefferson".
None of whom fought to destroy the Union.
I'm sorry John, I don't see any principle.
Principles are applied equally.
Did Lee own slaves?
In other words you can't debate the issue and have to resort to gottcha off topic bullshit. If you want to talk about liberals in blackface make your own article. I'll then agree with you there as will, I'm certain, the NT Democrats and Moderates.
I don't see any principles in supporting a figure of racism like Robert E Lee. The very site where people, not so very long ago, were chanting, "Jews will not replace us!"
yes
In other words I'm holding you to the old Saul Alinsky standard of making you stand for what you profess to believe in. Why is there no call for Northam to resign?
Gen. Robert E. Lee owned slaves - AP NEWS
According to historians, not only did Lee own slaves, but he also fought in court to keep working slaves from his father-in-law’s estate. Claims casting Lee as an anti-slavery figure are tied to a false narrative known as the Lost Cause, which says the Confederate experience in the Civil War was not about slavery, but state’s rights.
Vic, no one can prevent you from equating a politician in blackface to a general who commanded armies against his own country in fighting for the cause of owning human beings as property, all we can do is ridicule you.
Sadly, that is all you are left with.
OR we can stay on topic... If you're confused it's symbolic statues of racism.
Not your call.
Is that the only thing that is important about historical people now?
Gen. Robert E. Lee owned slaves
CLAIM: Gen. Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate States Army in the Civil War, “opposed both secession and slavery.” He did not own slaves.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. According to historians, not only did Lee own slaves, but he also fought in court to keep working slaves from his father-in-law’s estate. Claims casting Lee as an anti-slavery figure are tied to a false narrative known as the Lost Cause, which says the Confederate experience in the Civil War was not about slavery, but state’s rights.
THE FACTS: As protests following the death of George Floyd lead to a reexamination of historical injustice, there’s been a campaign calling for monuments celebrating the Confederacy to be taken down. False posts emerged on Facebook claiming that Lee “opposed both slavery and secession.” The false post was shared tens of thousands of times.
Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee against his neck for several minutes as he struggled to breathe.
John Reeves, a historian and author of the book, “The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee: The Forgotten Case Against an American Icon,” said the claim about Lee is false.
“Between owning a handful of slaves from his own family and then managing his father-in-law’s 200 slaves, Lee was very, very involved with slavery during his life up until the end of 1862,” he said.
Reeves explained that Lee worked the slaves for about five years in order to pay off legacies associated with his father-in-law’s estate. “He was utilizing the slave labor in order to pay the legacies,” Reeves explained.
Lee wanted to work the slaves beyond the five-year limit stated in his father-in-law’s will. Lee fought in court to keep the slaves working because he didn’t know if he would be able to pay off his legacies.
Wesley Norris was born a slave on the plantation that Lee managed after his father-in-law died. Norris testified during the court fight that Lee beat him when he tried to run away. “Every one of the facts in Wesley Norris’ account has been shown to be true,” Reeves noted.
The Lost Cause ideology imagines Lee as a gifted military general who wasn’t fighting for slavery but was fighting for state’s rights.
Defenders of Lee point to a portion of a letter he wrote to his wife where he refers to slavery as a “moral & political evil.” But it is taken out of context. In the rest of the letter, Lee underscores that the “subjugation” of the slaves needs to go on longer and only God can free them.
“If you judge him by his actions, he separated families through sale, he beat slaves who ran away,” said Ariela Gross, professor of law and history at University of Southern California. Gross focuses on race and slavery in the United States. “He was completely engaged in the work of slave holding and supporting slavery.”
___
This is part of The Associated Press’ ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform.
The modus operandi for some here when you have the temerity to simply disagree with their opinion.
Please explain to us the rationale for having a statue to Robert E Lee up in an American city.
It is already there and we have to put up with other statues of people some of us may not like.
Who are you talking about, George Floyd ?
Could be considered a divisionary "monument". And like that of Lee, after a while it won't be noticed and just something else to be walked past.
he certainly does not deserve a statue
Yep, free speech is easy when you agree with it. It only gets hard when you don't.
That's what the narcissists on the left don't get.
The current residents of Virginia through their representative governments are exercising their free speech by taking the monument down.
Hence their need for safe spaces, tearing down statues, and banning speech.
Why do you support the continuation of Robert E Lee statues ?
Only thing it is hurting is feeeeeelings by the "I'm a victim" crowd by being there.
[deleted]
Any time. And I rest my case.
You dont have a case.
Perfectly acceptable and short of a tyranny of the majority the way it is supposed to work ... .
Now a majority votes to remove say all MLK Jr tributes ..... is removal still acceptable?
Yep
The case for removing statues of slaveowners and confederate traitors is not based on the popularity of the move.
Tell us why there should be a six story statue of Robert E Lee on a city street in Richmond Virginia. Because it is already there is not a reason.
Answer my question first please. Stop trying to redirect.
But you said up above...............
So how is that not the "popularity of the move"?
The government and the free will of the people is the authority for taking it down, it is not the reason for taking it down.
Give us your reason for taking down a statue of MLK.
Okay, now you've offered two redirects without answering the original question.
One would think you don't have a good answer to the question John.
So are you saying that the "will of the people" isn't the popular (majority) opinion.
I will repeat my question and you and Jim can both answer it. What is the reason there should be a monument to Robert E Lee in any American city in 2021?
If you want to reply "because it is already there", I cant stop you, but that is not a reason.
Repeat it all you want.
You didn't ask that question to me before i asked mine. You know how it works. I asked you my question first. Protocol requires that you answer my question before i answer yours.
Honestly, John. As long as you've been doing this i'm surprised i have to explain that to you.
If you don't have a good answer just say so and we can stop wasting bandwidth here.
Lincoln was a democrat?
I already told you that the elected government is not the reason the statue is being removed. We cant give an opinion as to if a statue of MLK should be removed until we know what your reason for removing it is. You have offered none.
There are 53 comments on this seed now and not a single one of them gives us a reason why there should be statues of Robert E Lee on American streets in 2021.
Do you have one?
"Because it is already there" is not a reason.
Not even a good dodge John.
You can answer the hypothetical just like anyone else if you want to but it's clear that you don't want to, so i'll stop wasting my time pressing you for an answer and just accept that you don't have a good one.
Be glad to answer your question when you answer mine that was asked first. Same as always.
I answered your question. Popular opinion is not a reason for removing a statue, and no statue should be removed without cause. Lee is not being removed because of popular opinion, he is being removed because he was a slave owning traitor.
The revolutionary is intolerant of differing beliefs or ideas, intellectual challenges or opposition.
General Lee was loyal to Virginia when state loyalty was more important than loyalty to national government
I disagree, popular opinion is a much better way to decide such things IMO. Certainly better than a decision made by one governor and his state supreme court. That was my point. You agree with this decision because you agree with the reasons for removing the statue. Had the same decision been made the same way with MLK for what others considered "cause", you would be screaming bloody murder. I try to error on the side of free speech. Especially when it's hard to agree with.
Like a said many posts ago, i could care less if statues like this go or stay but be wary of the pandora's box you open with PC nonsense like this. And yes John, i think is just PC nonsense no matter how you manage to slice it.
Yes, your Republican candidate for governor of California, Larry Elder, suggested reparations should have been paid to slaveowners.
Projection, deflection, and denial, ALL THEY GOT!
Virginia seceded from the Union to protect slavery.
[Deleted]
replied to evilgenius @ 3.1.5
What? Did you intend to respond to me?
Actually, no, I was responding to what you had highlighted and then somewhere above that somebody mentioned Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson.
Never mind me. I've lost my way again
He was a known adulterer.
start a campaign then.
Donald Trump is a known adulterer and you elected him president. Some even want to put the known adulterer on Mt Rushmore.
I'd love to talk about Elder and what the dems are about to pull in California, bur Evilgenius told me to stay on topic!
In today's politics, Lincoln would be a lefty liberal that people around these parts constantly cry about.
I have a seed up about the Republicans whining in California, you can put your comment there.
Your 1950's fairy tales are a duhlight to listen to.
Ok, I’m not from Virginia, but I don’t understand why you would want this in your town. What do you think of when you look at it? “Hurray Slavery?” “Fuck the United States?”
I’m not saying any person is 100% evil or good. No person who has been immortalized this way is 100% perfect. And there are certainly some positive things you could get from knowing about Robert E Lee. He apparently had a brilliant military mind, was an inspiring leader, loyal to his state, a family man, etc, and so forth.
Those are all good qualities, but they aren’t the primary reason anyone remembers him. He is remembered as the leading general of the army that fought to preserve the right to keep people as slaves. History tells us he may have sat somewhere in the political middle on the question of slavery, but he was perfectly willing to fight and die to preserve it. Who really wants a statue of that?
I don't know why an artist would want to paint a picture with feces but many would call that an appropriate free expression and art.
Personally i find things like wall sized murals of George Floyd to be very distasteful but i support peoples right to express themselves in that manner and would NOT ask them to take it down.
This is exactly the same as that IMO, no matter how hard folks try to rationalize and justify that it is not.
It’s not the same thing, though. You’re talking about an artist’s freedom to express themselves. That still exists. The confederate statue issue is about what the public wants to celebrate on public property.
It's exactly the same thing .... unless you find a way to rationalize that it is not ...... which you have.
No, it isn't. What some private owner of a building allows painted on its side is not the same as what a local government allows to be built or displayed on public land. It's not a "rationalization", it's simply the difference between public and private property.
Now if the city wants to adopt some ordinance that says private buildings aren't allowed to paint murals on their buildings or must get city council approval first, then they might be able to prevent displays of people that some bigots and confederate lovers object to, but otherwise it's private property and doesn't in any way equate to erecting a several story monument to a known traitor and racist who fought to conserve slavery on public property that the local black Americans have to be overshadowed by when they simply want to enjoy the public spaces their tax dollars maintain.
A local government does have the authority to determine what monuments and memorials it places on public land, and there is almost always a reason that the majority of citizens agree to or at least don't object to when it's proposed. Like a 9/11 memorial being built in a local park. That has actual historical value. But keeping up a giant statue of Lee is like some local city council erecting a six story monument to Osama Bin Laden. While the terrorists might think that would be a historical memorial of 9/11 it would be sending exactly the wrong ideal for our nation and those who proposed it and authorized such a thing would rightly be called vile piece of shit terrorists.
As i've said here more than once here, i could care less if the statue stays or goes or for that matter if a private citizens paints a mural of Skeetz McGruder on the building they own.
I'm simply pointing out the hypocrisy of accepting one but not the other. And that has absolutely nothing to do with private or public money IMO.
I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not “rationalizing” anything, but I am rationally identifying the significant differences. Private artistic expression is a completely different scenario from public artistic display.
Right back at ya.
There are several reasons monuments like this would be constructed. Lee was a Union soldier as well as a Confederate. Many of the tactics he utilized during his career as both a Union and Confederate soldier are still taught today in military leadership training.
Not everybody focuses on the slavery. From what I've noticed, that's left to those who don't know. But I guess in order to pacify those who don't know, it gets removed.
I know. Do you know?
===============================================================
The myth of Robert E. Lee is dead. Trump just helped prove it. (msn.com)
The myth of Robert E. Lee is dead. Trump just helped prove it.
How the mighty have fallen.
Or in this case, how far the enormous statue of Robert E. Lee has fallen from its high perch over Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. On Wednesday, the Confederate general’s statue took one final, ignoble ride out of the state capital. Despite former President Donald Trump's ridiculous protests to the contrary , Lee’s reputation today seems to mirror his statue: cut to pieces.
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In 1861, when Lee chose to resign from the U.S. Army, abrogating his officer’s oath and accepting a commission in the Virginia militia, many condemned his action. In fact, when Lee gathered his Unionist family to tell them of his decision, he reportedly acknowledged they would disagree with him.
Other Virginians also questioned his decision. There were eight colonels in the U.S. Army from Virginia at the time the state seceded. All West Pointers, seven remained loyal. Lee and only Lee chose treason, chose to try to destroy the United States. And in doing so, he chose to fight for a new country dedicated to human enslavement. He certainly understood slavery, having spent more than two years from late 1857 to early 1860 running the plantation at Arlington , with its around 200 enslaved workers.
Lee fought for slavery because he believed in slavery.
That is the context of why his statue in Richmond needed to come down, as have similar statues across the country. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant destroyed Lee’s army. Yet, Lee remained the most revered figure among white Southerners for the next hundred years. Statues went up to his memory all over the South, including the 1890 gargantuan statue in Richmond. The state of Virginia led the nation in making Lee an American hero.
But the reverence for Lee served a terrible purpose: to further a white supremacist society. It’s time for Virginia — and the rest of America — to move on.
To be clear, Lee has always had critics. Frederick Douglass recoiled at the “nauseating flatteries” about Lee. Douglass abhorred statues to him, calling them “monuments of folly.”
In 1928, W.E.B. DuBois criticized Lee because he “led a bloody war to perpetuate slavery.” As historian Hilary Green has shown, the Black citizens of Richmond protested mightily against monuments to Lee and the Confederates.
Yet, groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy worked overtime to ensure all white Americans saw Lee through the lens of the “ Lost Cause ” mythology. That myth required a sainted figure, and groups like the UDC chose the most successful soldier in gray
The UDC controlled textbooks to ensure Lee was presented in a god-like fashion and the true cause of the Civil War, slavery, was obscured. Among white Americans, the UDC’s view of the war came close to winning, especially after the last Civil War veterans died.
During this time, the white South gained political dominance by rewriting its constitutions to exclude Blacks from political power. Flattering biographies of Lee furthered the lie that the Confederates really didn’t fight over slavery. Incredibly, Lee became a symbol of strength and patriotism for most white Americans during World War I and War II.
President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the Lee monument in Dallas , calling Lee a true American gentleman. President Dwight Eisenhower kept a painting of Lee in the Oval Office. Lee’s transformation from traitor to American hero seemed complete.
During the civil rights era, Virginia commissioned fourth, seventh and 11th grade textbooks that made Lee the most important part of the Civil War history. By concentrating on Lee, Virginia could avoid talking about slavery during a time it fought segregation through “massive resistance” to federal court rulings .
By the 1970s, criticism was taking root, as a few historians as well as many Black activists started to gain ground against the Lee mythology. Still, movies like “Gettysburg” in 1993 still made Lee look like a gentleman warrior.
But finally, the facts started to catch up. Historians wrote about how his army captured free Black people in Pennsylvania during the Gettysburg campaign and shipped them South for enslavement. One Pennsylvanian called it “a regular slave-hunt.” Lee’s army slaughtered Black prisoners of war after the Battle of the Crater in 1864.
After the war, Lee testified before Congress that if he had the choice, he would force all Black people to leave Virginia, a call for ethnic cleansing. Lee called Black people fit only to serve as a laboring class with no political rights . Lee’s own words damned him.
In 2015, the view of the Confederacy changed for most Americans, finally. When a white supremacist murdered churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, a picture surfaced of him holding a Confederate flag . Clearly, Dylann Roof understood what the United Daughters of the Confederacy had worked so hard to obscure.
Then, white nationalists flying the Confederate flag and the Nazi flag marched to save the Lee statue in Charlottesville , Virginia. Those racists also understood what many other Americans seemed to avoid. The Confederacy, and its leader Robert E. Lee, fought to maintain a society built on racial slavery.
Predictably, Trump's statement supporting Lee trots out all of the top myths and half-truths: that he was a brilliant general and true American patriot who only wanted what was best for Virginia. Such words ring quite hollow. Indeed, in many ways, the mainstream view of Lee today has come full circle. Black Americans and loyal military officers believed Lee chose treason to preserve slavery during the Civil War.
We should commemorate people who represent our national values. As the Lee statue rides off in pieces, Richmond, at least, represents the America we should hope to become.
Do you know anything at all about the Lost cause mythology.
Don't they call it liberalism?
Of course. And if the statue was put there for reasons that are worthy, we should have been hearing about them. But other than a vague and useless “it’s history” we haven’t seen much attempt to educate or persuade the public in this regard.
So we are left with what people know him best for (fighting for the pro-slavery side), and what they feel when they see the statue today. A lot of people feel like this statue was put up to rub Jim Crow in the faces of black people. I think that’s true for some Civil War statues. I don’t know if it was true for this one.
But enough do that that’s what matters.
For a lot of people, it’s hard to get past the slavery thing or the fact that he was fighting against the United States. I have often tried to argue that historical events have a kind of moral relativism, but few people today like hearing that.
The most famous person that I know of who made this argument on Lee’s behalf was President Eisenhower. Even in the 50s, he was criticized for his bust of Lee in the Oval Office. Ike, in particular was well situated to respect Lee as a general, a leader, and a man, as they strode similar paths in their lives.
In case people are interested, I will include here this link and a copy of Ike’s letter to a citizen explaining his positive feelings for Robert E. Lee.
I think you and I had the same textbooks in school. Nothing was ever mentioned about Lee except that he was a great general...and I grew up in PA. Even in the mid to late 70's people all around trotted out the canard about the civil war was about states' rights and not slavery. Even my own parents who were born in PA...and not all that far from Gettysburg
Funny, I grew up on the AZ/Mexico border. A lot of people here said the same things about Pancho Villa. Both my in laws were from just outside Oil City, PA. We had some good conversations about the Civil War and the Mexican Revolution.
It would be nice if they could have left the horse.
Yeah. I like the horse
They did cut Lee off at the waist line... it was just to damned big to transport and too fragile to lie down.
Whether Lee gets welded back on remains to be seen
Lee's statue should be replaced with one of Robert Carter III and his ''deed of gift''.
A native son of Virginia and worthy of a monument.
Anyone else notice that it's republicans, (for the most part, not all of course), that are upset that statues of slave owners are being taken down?
Pro Tip: If you want to learn about the people these statues represent, go to a library and read about them.
Libraries are for LEARNING, statues are for HONORING people, probably why there aren't statues of fucking Hitler all over Germany and Austria.
Well that's because many of them weren't always Republican. They've always been religious conservatives, but they haven't always been Republicans. I find it very funny how vigorously so many religious conservative Republicans today declare their detachment from the old Southern religious conservative Democrats who erected and protected these monuments over the last century or more while at the same time they just as vigorously continue to protect the monuments, fly confederate flags and defend the confederacy with weak lies about what the civil war was really about and how confederates weren't really traitors and how they were really just misunderstood rebels trying to fight for States rights. The white Christian conservatives who ran the South over the last hundred years haven't really changed much, just the letter after their name for party affiliation. They're like a Leopard who changed the last letter of their name from "d" to "r" making them a Leoparr and now expect all the prey animals to invite them to their parties even though they've never changed their spots... or their diet. "What me? Ate your cousin? No, no, that wasn't me, I'm a Leoparr you know, not one of those violent specist meat eating Leopards...".
As always, you're spot on.
Ironic, those turds screaming to "go back to your country" while flying a flag of a country that doesn't exist in the country that defeated it.