December 23rd According to a report by the United Press International Service (UPI) on December 21, local time, the Virginia government of the United States recovered the statue of General Robert Lee of the Confederate Union that was donated to the National Statue Hall of the Capitol 100 years ago.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam announced in a statement on the 21st that workers had demolished the statue of the commander of the Northern Virginia Army Alliance last night.
Since 1909, the statue of the general has been one of the two statues that each state has the right to display. It stands in the statue collection hall of the U.S. Capitol. The statue of General Robert Lee stands with the statue of George Washington, the first president of the United States, and other collections in Virginia.
Earlier this month, the State Historic Statue Commission of the U.S. Capitol selected Barbara Rose Johns, a prominent black activist, to replace Lee’s statue.
According to historians, Johns played a key role in the civil rights movement. In 1951, at the age of 16, she led students to fight against overcrowding and harsh environment in Farmville, Virginia, and finally succeeded.
Three years later, the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed five cases of apartheid in Brown v. Board of Education, one of which Johns’s case, which declared apartheid unconstitutional.
The committee voted unanimously in the summer to demolish the statue of Lee and move it to the Virginia Museum at the request of the committee.
Jeion Ward, a representative of the State Historic Statue Commission of the U.S. Capitol, said in a statement: “Whenever I think of Barbara Johns, I think of how brave she was when she was young.
It’s time for us to sing praises to these Virginians who have done great things silently. It’s a proud moment for our state government, and I’m honored to be a part of it.”
Johns’ statue must be approved by the plenary session before it can be commissioned by the sculptor to sculptors. If approved, this statue will become the only statue representing teenagers in the statue hall collection.
Northam’s proposed budget includes $500,000 to replace the statue of Lee in the U.S. Capitol.
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed by police unarmed on suspicion of using counterfeit money on Memorial Day. After his killing, racial justice protests demanding the demolition of the Union statue reappeared.
Since then, Minneapolis policeman Derek Shawn has been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, and three other policemen have been charged with aiding and abetting.
In June of this year, during a nationwide protest against racism and police brutality, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for the demolition of 11 statues depicting Confederate soldiers, including 100 statues donated by 50 states in the statue hall of the Capitol.
