A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E
ByThe Associated Press
October 27, 2023, 11:48 AM
FILE- Workers get ready to take away the monuments of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on Saturday, July 10, 2021 in Charlottesville, Va. The statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that was once a point of interest of a deadly white nationalist protest in 2017 has been melted down and shall be repurposed into new artistic endeavors. The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, a Charlottesville-based Black historical past museum, mentioned Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023, that the statue have been destroyed. (AP Photo/John C. Clark, File)
The Associated Press
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that was once a point of interest of a deadly white nationalist protest in 2017 has been melted down and shall be repurposed into new artistic endeavors.
The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, a Charlottesville-based Black historical past museum, mentioned Thursday that the statue have been destroyed.
The Charlottesville City Council voted in 2021 to donate the statue to the heritage heart, after it proposed a Swords into Plowshares mission that would soften the statue and repurpose it into “public art that expresses the City’s values of inclusivity and racial justice,” in step with the proposal submitted to town.
The statue was once taken down in 2021 after years of discussion and prolong.
Protests over the plan to take away the statue morphed into the violent “Unite the Right” rally in 2017. It was once all through that rally that James Alex Fields Jr., an avowed Hitler admirer, deliberately drove his automobile right into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. Fields is serving a existence sentence.
Two teams that had sought to maintain the statue sued closing 12 months to take a look at to dam town from donating it to the heritage heart, however a pass judgement on tossed out their case.
At a news convention Thursday, heritage heart officers mentioned they now plan to solicit proposals on the right way to repurpose the statue. The heart hopes to select an artist subsequent 12 months and is accomplishing a $4 million fundraising marketing campaign.
For now, the bronze from the statue has been molded into ingots stamped with the phrases “SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES,” a few of that have been on show on the news convention.
“Our efforts have been not to remove history but bear witness to the truths about our racist pasts and our aspirations for a more equitable future,” mentioned Andrea Douglas, director of the heritage heart.
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