Sat 10 July 2021:
A statues of two US Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson were removed in the city of Charlottsville, Virginia in the US.
The statue had been at the centre of a deadly white supremacist rally in August 2017. There had been protests over plans to remove the statue. During the white supremacist protest four years ago, a woman was run down by a car and killed.
Statues of Confederate generals who fought for pro-slavery south during the American Civil War still evoke fierce reactions. Some say that the statues are part of American culture while others say that they are symbols of America’s pro-slavery past.
Workers in the Virginia city used a crane to remove the statues — which depicted the men in uniform mounted on horses — as a crowd watched and cheered. No clashes were immediately reported.
The city’s planned removal of the Lee statue in 2017 prompted a rally by neo-Nazis and white nationalists that turned deadly when a car driven into a crowd killed a counter-protester, 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
Weeks later the Charlottesville city council unanimously ordered the Jackson statue to be removed.
During the 1861-1865 Civil War, the Confederate South seceded from the United States and fought to maintain slavery, which the rest of the country had abolished.
———————————————————————————————————————-
FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:
TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent
FACEBOOK (CLICK HERE)
https://web.facebook.com/ipindependent
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
