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Virginia gov faces new hurdle in bid to remove Lee statue
Source: Associated Press
Virginia gov faces new hurdle in bid to remove Lee statue
By SARAH RANKIN
August 3, 2020
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A judge dismissed a legal challenge Monday that had been blocking Virginia officials from removing a towering statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the state’s capital city, but he immediately imposed another injunction against dismantling the figure.
The new 90-day injunction bars Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration from “removing, altering, or dismantling, in any way” the larger-than-life statue of Lee on a prominent Richmond avenue while claims in a lawsuit filed by local property owners are litigated.
Richmond’s sustained anti-racist protests since the police custody death in Minnesota of a Black man, George Floyd. Northam announced plans in June to remove the statue, citing the pain felt around the nation by Floyd’s killing.
Floyd’s death sparked a renewed wave of Confederate monument removals across the U.S., just like a violent 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville before it and a mass shooting at a historic African American church in South Carolina before that.
Should a court eventually clear the way, it won’t be a simple task to take down the 21-foot- (6.4-meter) equestrian statue of Lee, the military commander of the Confederacy that for nearly all of the Civil War had its seat in Richmond. The statue weighs about 12 tons (11 metric tonnes) and sits on a massive pedestal. Removal plan calls for cutting it into three sections for eventual reassembly elsewhere.
-snip-
By SARAH RANKIN
August 3, 2020
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A judge dismissed a legal challenge Monday that had been blocking Virginia officials from removing a towering statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the state’s capital city, but he immediately imposed another injunction against dismantling the figure.
The new 90-day injunction bars Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration from “removing, altering, or dismantling, in any way” the larger-than-life statue of Lee on a prominent Richmond avenue while claims in a lawsuit filed by local property owners are litigated.
Richmond’s sustained anti-racist protests since the police custody death in Minnesota of a Black man, George Floyd. Northam announced plans in June to remove the statue, citing the pain felt around the nation by Floyd’s killing.
Floyd’s death sparked a renewed wave of Confederate monument removals across the U.S., just like a violent 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville before it and a mass shooting at a historic African American church in South Carolina before that.
Should a court eventually clear the way, it won’t be a simple task to take down the 21-foot- (6.4-meter) equestrian statue of Lee, the military commander of the Confederacy that for nearly all of the Civil War had its seat in Richmond. The statue weighs about 12 tons (11 metric tonnes) and sits on a massive pedestal. Removal plan calls for cutting it into three sections for eventual reassembly elsewhere.
-snip-
Read more: https://apnews.com/9ad2f60a39faaf8b7eb85f293bd1ffdf
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