A statue of Accomplice Basic Robert E. Lee has been faraway from the Capitol. It will likely be moved to a museum and can probably get replaced with one in every of civil rights chief Barbara Johns. The transfer has prompted a polorizing response.
The statue was eliminated Monday morning by employees from the Architect of the Capitol. The proceedings have been attended by Democratic members of Virginia’s congressional delegation: Senator Tim Kaine, Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton and a consultant of Congressman Donald McEachin.
“The Robert E. Lee statue honors a legacy of division, oppression, and racism — a darkish interval within the historical past of our Commonwealth and our nation,” Wexton and McEachin stated in a joint assertion. “There is no such thing as a cause his statue ought to be one of many two representing Virginia within the US Capitol,” they added, calling the removing a “historic and long-overdue second.”
Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) additionally commented on the statue being changed, saying, “The statues throughout the Capitol ought to embody our highest beliefs as People.” She condemned “the bigotry of the Confederacy,” including that Congress “will proceed our work to rid the Capitol of homages to hate.”
On-line, nevertheless, response to the choice has been fairly blended.
Some argued that the statue being changed was “erasing historical past,” whereas others wrote that it might have been higher to destroy it. A number of noticed its removing from the Capitol as “very affordable,” saying that regardless of the historic connotations, “it ought to by no means have been there within the first place”.
The erasing of our historical past. The left continues its march to basically change America. I’m a northerner by delivery a Virginian by alternative and am saddened that that is being executed. The cowards in energy who’re doing this can be eradicating the residing who offend them subsequent. https://t.co/uyzCftHvFF
— Jamison (@jamisoncoppola) December 21, 2020
It’s nonetheless historical past. It ought to be within the museum.
— Professional Aaron (@ProAaronzh) December 21, 2020
That is very affordable. The statue shouldn’t be destroyed however there is no such thing as a logic for it to be within the U.S. Capitol when Lee was not solely a part of the Confederacy but in addition by no means a member of the U.S. Congress or govt. It ought to by no means have been there within the first place
— Richard Splett (@therealsplett2) December 21, 2020
Lee’s statue was one of many two figures representing Virginia within the Capitol, and the choice to take it down was made by the state’s Basic Meeting final week. It will likely be relocated to the Commonwealth’s Museum of Historical past and Tradition. The collection of a monument to civil rights chief Barbara Johns as a alternative, nevertheless, is but to be accepted.
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