Yesterday morning the Lee Monument, the last major and most prominent celebration of the Lost Cause, was removed. Virginia and Richmond have now truly embraced the 21st Century.
Lee Monument Removed
Share this article
ADVERTISEMENT
(comments below)
ADVERTISEMENT
(comments below)
Comments
82 responses to “Lee Monument Removed”
-
There was a time capsule, where is the story describing that?
-
I doubt there will be a story about that. Anyone who would have put something in that time capsule then is a prime candidate for cancellation today.
After all, some of the things those people placed in that capsule might hurt someone’s feelings…
-
Anyone who put something in that capsule has most assuredly been cancelled already.
-
the time capsule will be interesting.
-
Okay, you got me there.
-
-
-
-
or capitulated to the ideological bullies and race-baitors.
-
Not capitulating to bullies and race-baitors is exactly why it was torn down.
-
indeed.
-
-
Steve sounds pretty upset that this statue which was raised by the Democrats was removed. Never knew you aligned with Democrats, Steve… well, 1890 Conservative Virginia Democrats anyway…
-
-
Aw shucks!
-
I still consider Lee to be a man of character and principle. Not as great a tactician as some claim. But his memory fatally tainted by Jim Crow adulation.
That’s not a modest statue of a man and his place in history, it’s a massive, massive monument to the lost cause and all it stands for.
-
Now that the major symbolic issue of Confederate statues has been removed, maybe we can move on to the important business of improving peoples’ lives in the real world.
-
We still have LBJ’s plantation system to create ever more illegitimacy to increase reliance on D.C., a revolting situation.
-
No!
-
I strongly disagree. That implies that Richmond’s problems were caused by the Confederate statues. Richmond’s problems were caused by Richmonders, and the politicians they elected.
-
-
That statue would make one heck of a lawn ornament in my yard. Take that all you lawn jockeys, flamingos and donkey cart planters!
And, being sensitive to the feelings of others, I’d make sure it was not visible from the road so as not to accidently offend anyone.
-
What does “embraced the 21st century” mean?
Re-entered the dark ages? Hopped on the bus with the rest of the destroyers?
Can we edit Sweet Virginia Breeze on when I get back to the city of No Monuments…?
Prior to the CRT people dividing, no one cared. No statue can stand now.
Everybody who ever supported abortion…in 1973, you could be ignorant (I was), but now, you cannot get around you are taking a life. Sophistry your way around that.
While we are at it, you know Biden’s and Harris’ families owned slaves, right?
Finally, Lee had more character in his pinky than all of his critics. After Gettysburg, there were plenty to cast blame on. But not Lee – he tendered his resignation. Still waiting for Milley, Austin, Blinken and SlowJoe to be 1/100th the man Lee was.-
It sounds better than “leave the 19th century.”
-
Explain why.
Try a substantive response for once.
Mies architecture everywhere, brutalism, re-writing of history is better? Brave New World indeed…-
Pages of prattle do not substance make. QED.
-
Snark covering inanity. QED.
-
-
-
-
Don’t mess with my Historical District!
-
-
FGOTUS said the war in Afghanistan would have gone better if General Lee were in charge. Well, the surrender, perhaps.
-
“Virginia and Richmond have now truly embraced the 21st Century.”
Lol. Removing a six story high Confederate statue erected against the wishes of the man memorialized is perhaps a step in embracing the 1970s.
Making Virginia’s government transparent and honest might get us past the year 2000.
Chopping out the last vestiges of the Byrd Machine (with a sharp hatchet if need be) would put us in 2021.
As far as “Virginia and Richmond” – please stop conflating the attitudes and “culture” of upper crust White Richmond with the rest of Virginia. Many areas in Virginia embraced the 19th, 20th and 21st century long before upper crust White Richmonders. One example is the entire state of what is now West Virginia.
Another example is the Arlington School Board’s integration plan of 1954. Passed before Massive Resistance the plan was thwarted by legislators in Richmond who passed laws revoking elected school boards in order to continue segregation in the public schools – even the public schools which wanted to integrate.
I would say that upper crust White Richmond is rushing headlong into 1976 but that was the year the statue of Massive Resistance architect Harry F Byrd was dedicated on the Capitol grounds in …. Richmond. Happily, that damn statue has now been removed too.
http://arlingtonhistoricalsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/1996-4-Integration.pdf
-
and Richmond crime immediately decreased, economic prowess in the inner city sky rocketed, and black student SOL scores gained 50 points this morning…..
-
Chopped to pieces, too, so it could never be placed elsewhere, obviously on the governor’s orders. The bronze will be pilfered, piecemeal, likely for drug $$.
-
I’m glad that we did have some time living in the city, right on Stuart Circle, and I could chat with the general through the 3rd floor apartment window and visited with Lee and Jackson on my regular walks.. My “woke” son gave us a set of line drawings of the main statues, and our daughter gave me a photo of the Stuart statue installation ceremony, with the ageing cavalrymen admiring it. In two years the city has become more of a dump, looks like crap, and I doubt very much that in coming days the schools will get any better, VCU students will no longer get mugged on those blocks, the killings in the projects will slow, other pieces of art will appear on the empty pedestals, the empty storefronts on Broad will be replaced by thriving businesses, any of the wild dreams for downtown development will materialize or any other signs of progress will show. But as long as tearing down statues makes you a political hero, actually doing the hard work is not needed.
-
I was led to believe they were cutting it into two pieces. Did they do more than that?
In any event, the pieces were hauled away to a [relatively] safe place to await the decision regarding the statue’s ultimate fate. I doubt there will be much pilfering.
-
-
What has been embraced is wokeism and revisionist history. Robert E Lee would have objected to the erection of a statue in his honor but now he has been characterized as an oppressor and racist. How many will invest the effort to learn the entirety of the man. I like to point out that if the narrative that drove this action had been applied to the many flawed people in the Bible, they would be reviled; not revered.
-
Have no fear. They are next.
-
It is not about Lee, the man. It is about dismantling something that had come to be a glorification of the Confederacy and the Lost Cause.
-
I don’t recall it being considered the glorification of the Lost Cause until the time when the Mayor appointed the Monument Avenue Commission. I have lived in Virginia for 70 years and that is news to me. When did that take place?
-
Agreed. The people who valued the Monument Avenue statues did not value them because they “glorified the lost cause.” Perhaps the people who erected the statues glorified the lost cause, but the meaning of the statues changed. People on the left side of the political divide imposed the glorification-of-the-lost cause narrative upon the statues as a justification for bringing them down. Let’s see what happens now to statues of Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Mason and other slaveholders who were never associated with the lost cause.
-
Let’s see what happens? WE know what is going to happen. The low hanging fruit is now out of the way.
-
re: ” People on the left side of the political divide imposed the glorification-of-the-lost cause narrative upon the statues as a justification for bringing them down.”
wonder what black folks subject to Jim Crow thought all along?
-
“wonder what black folks subject to Jim Crow thought all along?”
Does that give “black folks” (whoever that might be) absolute moral authority to determine what American history is and isn’t acceptable? If so, who are the “approved” black folks? Do Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele qualify? (Google them, if you need to).
-
Black folks are the ones who were subject to Jim Crow laws and violence, including death, so yes, them, and other principled human beings of other colors who also acknowledge THAT history.
So, now the claim is that some white folks never knew the statues got put up by Jim Crow/lost cause types and they just “liked” them for their “history”.
Apparently never got taught about it in school and now oppose the teaching of such stuff because it’s “divisive”.
No such thing as systemic racism if you never saw it yourself and never knew about Jim Crow and the statues so of course it’s the folks who suffered from Jim Crow who are causing the ruckus to start with… or some such…
-
-
-
Let’s see what happens now to statues of Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Mason and other slaveholders who were never associated with the lost cause.
I don’t hold out much hope for those statues. On June 18, 2020, in a letter to the Mayor deBlowsio, members of the New York City Council, including Council Speaker Corey Johnson, demanded that a statue of Thomas Jefferson be removed from City Hall.
As far as I know it is still there, but the official movement to cancel this country’s founders is already underway.
-
-
The bible… speaking of revisionist history
-
I’d prefer a source that is grossly instead of one that is exactly wrong.
Richmond must be doing something right according to the latest census.
-
Richmond grew 11% in the last decade. However, it now still has fewer residents than it had in 1950. Meanwhile, Charlotte has grown by 650% since 1950 (Charlotte had about 1/2 the population of Richmond in 1950 and has about 4X Richmond’s population today).
Richmond grew 11% from 2010 to 2020.
Atlanta grew 18.7%.
Charlotte grew 19.6%.
Nashville grew 14.7%.
Jacksonville grew 15.6%.
Alexandria grew 13.9%.
Arlington grew 14.9%The United States of America grew 7.4%.
Good to see the City of Richmond growing but it is hardly leading the pack among southern cities and it has decades of “catch up” vs cities like Atlanta and Charlotte.
Virginia’s Byrd era constitution and Byrd era political establishment is designed to retard the growth of real cities.
-
The difference: Charloot has an uptown!
-
Lee never wanted any such statue put up. He would have applauded its removal, because his warnings about how divisive it would be proved prescient. Those of us who still respect him and the history will not forget.
I’m nearby today. Maybe I’ll run by Ft. Sam Houston where he used to serve, see if they mention him in their little museum.
So…..now what on Empty Pedestal Avenue?
-
Xi Jinping?
He seems to be a hero to some in this country…
-
As is Putin. Perhaps this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rodin_-_Le_Baiser_06.jpg
with appropriate heads (of State) swapped.-
So then, Joe Biden and Mohammad Hasan Akhund?
-
How about McCarthy and Pelosi? It would keep eyes on the road.
-
-
-
-
Don’t forget to dodge the golf balls on approach to Fort. Sam’s gate.
-
Richmond = Ghetto
-
How about AOC? Divisive? What non-sense. Divisive only to people who can make pronouns divisive.
-
She’s hard left, no question. Wanna talk about some hard right folks in Congress also?
-
“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
FPOTUS Obama
I’m going to go out on a limb and say you voted for the former President and didn’t mind his deceive rhetoric.
-
Biden’s got to remove the Lee Statue at Gettysburg opposing Gen. Meade. I’m guessing he’ll remove Meade’s by mistake?
-
Perhaps he’ll remove Gen. Sherman’s statue in the Presidents Park. As the good general wasn’t exactly equitable to Native Americans. However, I guess his service for the Union erased all those previous sins.
-
-
-
So, Steve, like many of his time, you fail still to see the point of what Lee was saying 150 years ago…..
-
-
“Lee never wanted any such statue put up. He would have applauded its removal, because his warnings about how divisive it would be proved prescient.”
What qualifies you to make such a broad-brush statement? Are you really saying that Lee would have wanted his supporters to stand by, silently, as his statue was hacked into pieces by a hooting crowd? If so, what qualifies you to say that?
Do you think Lee would have approved of a state government hacking a statue into pieces, because a minority of Virginians were irritated by it?
You’re enabling the statue hackers, BTW. Which, of course, is your right. But, you should own and admit what you are enabling.
For anyone who enjoys irony, the new time capsule contains a copy of National Geo with the Lee monument on the cover. The photo has been photoshopped. Some of the graffiti that rhymes with cluck has been blurred out.
Jim has an excellent point. While removing statues has emotional appeal, it doesn’t improve day-to-day life. Richmond Schools are in such bad shape the ventilation system in some schools is nonexistent. The necessity for adequate ventilation during a rapidly spreading virus has been well documented. It’s a shame no one is jumping up and down about these issues. I get that ventilation and peeling paint aren’t as exciting as statue removal. Lack of emotional appeal doesn’t mean it’s not important.
Actually, this is what getting on with the business of improving everyday lives and taking on the bigger problems of the day looks like. Lots and lots of small, mostly meaningless moments to those who only see it on the evening news or not at all, only a little more so to those there, and quickly forgotten en masse by all until Oliver Stone makes a movie.
Lee Monument Removed
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way we can move on to removing an even larger government-owned racist monument: the Woodrow Wilson Bridge…
-
Yeah, I’m waiting for that one. I think Wilson lived for his first two years of life in Staunton before his family moved to Georgia. In adulthood he was the President of Princeton and Governor of New Jersey. But somehow, in the twisted history of Virginia – he is a son of the Old Dominion.
Might be better to let Georgia or New Jersey claim Woody.
-
Or maybe the Czech Republic. In 2011, they dedicated a statue to him in Prague.
-
-
Don’t be silly! Can you imagine the crane? Wait! It’s a drawbridge! Just lift the bridge and pop those oversized silver dollars off the operator’s tower and lower it with a new name.
-
It’s one of 8 drawbridges on the Interstate highway system. Isn’t that special? Something to be proud of!
-
Yeah, well better that than a bridge-tunnel. We have the proof. And all because the Navy fears another Pearl Harbor. Always fighting the last war.
-
You know that if it was a tunnel some gomer wouldn’t do their job, the pumps would fail, and the thing would flood.
-
While crossing from Portsmouth to Norfolk many years ago. I was sitting at the bottom of the tunnel stuck in traffic, watching water flowing in the gutters and thinking, “Wait, was it raining?” As I started up the hill, I saw the scaffolding in one lane and curtains of water cascading from the roof.
-
Some of the WMATA tunnels have water leakage problems. The water gets into the 3rd rail and trips out the circuit.
-
-
-
Your mention of bridge-tunnels triggered a memory of once, long ago, on a dare, having driven the entire length of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, all 92,848 feet of it, while looking through binoculars. This was before the bridge sections were 4-laned, so it was an interesting experience.
The tunnels were definitely the most exciting part.
I was planning on looking backwards through the binoculars for the return trip but for some reason I decided not to.
-
Oh, I can see that my concerns about a fiery motorcycle crash was severely misplaced. Movie reference coming: “leave the cork on your fork.”
-
Yes. It’s in the top ten most dangerous/crazy/stupid things I have ever done.
-
You short yourself, I’m sure. My best two were a headlights off drive, but there was a full moon and the fields were covered in snow, and I came down from Peaks of Otter at 2AM on the left side.
-
Exactly!
Nope. Renaming that monument to racial hatred is not going to assuage the emotional pain and psychological trauma that the current name has inflicted on so many people over the years.
Only a new bridge will allow healing to begin – a bridge to the 21st century…
😉
-
Believe this, that bridge caused more than racial pain.
-
Still does.
-
Agreed. No name change either. I want the entire bridge dismantled all the way down to the footings. Build back better as Northam and Biden say. Call the new bridge whatever you want. Maybe Stoney’s pal with the crane can build the new bridge. I understand he works for very reasonable rates.
“Thy Will be done”. A quote used over and over by Marse Robert.
One rebel guardian remains! A.P. Hill. Lee’s most capable warrior and commander of the “Light Division”. With A.P. Hill leading the counterpunches, Grant was denied the prize of Petersburg and Richmond for 10 months.
It is fitting for Hill to remains. Jackson and Lee called for A.P. Hill from their deathbeds.
“Tell Hill to prepare for action!” by Jackson moments before death.
“Tell A.P. Hill he must come up” by Lee on his last day.
Hill was tragically KIA just five days before Appomattox.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Image_of_Lieutenant_General_A.P._Hill.jpg
We can now all take a breath as racism is now gone. #winning!
“Yesterday morning the Lee Monument, the last major and most prominent celebration of the Lost Cause, was removed.”
Nope! Sod off, swampy! Dismissing the Lee Monument as only “the last major and most prominent celebration of the Lost Cause” is a characterization that YOU need to own. Don’t implicate rational, mature adults in such a broad-brush statement. Monuments mean many different things to different people. Adults understand that.
“Virginia and Richmond have now truly embraced the 21st Century.” If “the 21st Century” means shallow, one-dimensional thinking, then perhaps we should go back to the 20th Century.
If honor and dignity and duty are 2oth century concepts, then maybe the 21st century isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.