Robert E. Lee statue removed from Federal Capitol for being a racist symbol

Washington – A statue of the General of the Army of the Confederate States of the South, Robert E. Lee, who opposed the abolition of slavery in the Civil War and who represented Virginia in the United States Capitol for 111 years, was removed Monday.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement that workers removed the effigy from the Capitol’s National Statues Room Monday morning.

Northam had filed for retirement and a state commission decided that Lee was not a suitable symbol for the state because of his racist past.

Lee’s statue has stood next to George Washington’s since 1909 and represented Virginia on the federal Capitol. Each state has two statues.

The Virginia commission recommended replacing Lee’s statue with one of Barbara Johns, who in 1951 protested the conditions at her high school in Farmville Town for black youth. Her lawsuit was part of the landmark decision of the nation’s Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. The ruling had abolished racial segregation in public schools.

Connected monuments have become a nationwide hot spot since the death of George Floyd, an African American who died after a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee to his neck for several minutes. Anti-racism protesters have attacked Confederate monuments in several cities, and some have been removed.

“The Confederacy is a symbol of Virginia’s racist and divisive history, and it is time we tell our history with images of persistence, diversity and inclusion,” Northam said in a statement.