Virginia high court: Statue of Robert E. Lee can be removed

The Virginia Supreme Court connected Thursday ruled that the authorities tin region a ample statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from the metropolis of Richmond's "Monument Avenue."

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam primitively announced his intentions to region the statue successful June 2020, arsenic the state was gripped with protests against radical injustice and constabulary brutality.

The statue of Lee became the epicenter of the protests successful Richmond. The monument was covered successful graffiti, and astatine assorted times a representation of George Floyd — the antheral whose execution astatine the hands of constabulary sparked nationwide protests — was projected onto the statue.

However, lawsuits person kept the statute intact. According to the Associated Press, those who filed suits included "a radical of residents who ain spot adjacent the statue and a descendant of signatories to a 1890 deed that transferred the statue, pedestal and onshore they beryllium connected to the state."

While the courts weighed the ineligible combat implicit the Lee statue, other Confederate memorials connected Monument Avenue were removed. Statues of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson and Confederate Naval Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury were removed from Monument Avenue successful aboriginal July 2020 and taken to an undisclosed location. A statue of Confederate wide J.E.B. Stuart was removed from the country a week later.

Earlier this year, different salient statue of Lee was taken down by officials successful Charlottesville, Virginia. Public treatment implicit the removal of that statue sparked the "Unite the Right" rally of achromatic supremacists successful August 2017, a protestation that led to the execution of counter-protester Heather Heyer.