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RICHMOND, Virginia – Virginia’s highest court on Thursday ruled that the city of Charlottesville may take down two statues of Confederate generals, including that of Robert E. Lee who became the center of a murderous white nationalist rally in 2017.
The state Supreme Court overturned a Circuit Court ruling in favor of a group of residents who had filed a lawsuit to prevent the city from destroying the statue of Lee and a nearby monument to his compatriot on General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. Charlottesville City Council voted to remove both.
White supremacist and neo-Nazi organizers of the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville said they traveled to the city to defend the statue of Lee. They clashed with counter-protesters before a man plunged his car into a crowd of people, killing a woman.
The Jackson statue was erected in Jackson Park in 1921 and the Lee statue was erected in Lee Park in 1924.
In Thursday’s ruling, state Supreme Court Justice Bernard Goodwyn said the two statues were erected long before legislation was passed regulating the “disturbance or interference” of monuments or war monuments.
“In other words, (the law) did not give the city the power to erect the statues, and it does not prohibit the city from disturbing or interfering with them,” Goodwyn wrote.
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