The Charlottesville City Council is set to vote on removing a second Confederate monument just weeks after violent white nationalist protests over a statue of Robert E. Lee led to three deaths.
Although the council had initially planned to leave a statue of General Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson in place, it is reconsidering in light of what happened at the rally.
A resolution on removing the Jackson statue is on Tuesday night’s agenda. The statue would remain, however, while a lawsuit over it and the Lee monument plays out.
In February, the council was divided in its decision to remove the Lee statue, barely passing the measure on a 3-2 vote. Mayor Mike Signer and Kathy Galvin voted against it but have since changed their minds in the wake of the August 12 riots four weeks ago.
Charlottesville City Council will vote Tuesday night on removing the General Stonewall Jackson Confederate monument
The statue of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson has been shrouded in black plastic since late August
Anger boiled over the last council meeting two weeks ago, where scores of people screamed and cursed at councilors over the city’s response to the rally. Tuesday’s agenda also includes time for public comment.
Two weeks ago, the mayor, vice mayor and three council members fled the room. Two protestors held a banner saying ‘Blood on your Hands.’
The resolution calls for removal of the Jackson statue ‘as soon as possible’ pending a successful resolution of the Lee court case.
Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer talks to reporters in front of the covered Stonewall statue on August 23
Protesters march in July in front of the Stonewall statue as they demonstrate against a KKK rally in Charlottesville
‘I speak only for myself. I will vote to move it. I think it’s time,’ Charlottesville City Councilor Bob Fenwick told NBC 29.
‘They should be in a museum. If people stop and think, we have no statues, that I know of, to George Washington in Charlottesville, and yet none of us have forgotten his history. So this argument that we have to keep it to preserve history, to me, is irrelevant.’
The statues of both Lee and Jackson have been covered in black tarp since late last month as a memorial to Heather Heyer, the woman who was killed at the rally.
Tuesday night’s vote is the latest action in the nationwide debate over Confederate street names, statues and other symbols that is being conducted. Confederate memorials have been under increased scrutiny since the deadly violence in August.
Protesters have defaced several Confederate memorials in the South.
A photo of the woman who was killed in Charlottesville sits in front of a vandalized Confederate memorial in Atlanta, Georgia
Confederate monuments have been coming down all over the country due to rising racial tensions
The first discovered was a statue honoring Confederate officer John B. Castleman in Lexington, Kentucky. It was discovered splattered with orange paint around 8am on August 13.
That same morning, another Confederate memorial in Tampa, Florida, was discovered painted red as well.
The vandals wrote ‘f*** fascists’ on one of the marble slabs set up to honor Confederate soldiers who gave their lives in the Civil War.
In Atlanta, Georgia, a statue commemorating the end of the Civil War was splattered with red paint.
A bust commemorating Confederate lieutenant general Nathan Bedford Forrest in Nashville, Tennessee, was covered with a black sweatshirt, while hand-drawn signs were set up at the base, calling Forrest a ‘slaver,’ ‘traitor’ and ‘klansman’.