This article has been updated since it originally appeared in print.
Philonise Floyd spoke at the Lee Monument on July 28, 2020, during an event that showcased a holographic artwork that features his late brother, George Floyd, whose death sparked protests around the country this past summer. (Photo by Landon Shroder)
After a summer defined by nightly protests against racism and police violence, state and local officials now seek to reimagine a swath of Monument Avenue that has been anchored by Confederate symbols for more than a century.
In the wake of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis last May, protesters took to Richmond’s streets for months to rally for reforms, including slashing the Richmond Police Department’s budget and forming an independent civilian review board with subpoena power to examine acts of police misconduct.
Citywide marches also turned their attention toward Confederate and Colonial symbols, with protesters toppling statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Christopher Columbus, Confederate Gen. Williams Carter Wickham, the Richmond Howitzer monument on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University and the First Virginia Regiment statue in Meadow Park in June.
Their actions got results: Starting on July 1, city-owned Confederate statues along Monument Avenue and elsewhere were removed and taken into temporary storage under an emergency order by Mayor Levar Stoney, citing a public safety hazard. As of October 2020, the city had received 22 proposals from museums, historical societies and private individuals to acquire the monuments, former City Council Chief of Staff Lawrence Anderson explained at a Council organizational meeting. Recommendations for their disposition are expected sometime this year, he said.
Meanwhile, Gov. Ralph Northam called for the removal of the state-owned statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that has towered over Monument Avenue since 1890. Although the governor’s effort has been mired by lawsuits, Northam Chief of Staff Clark Mercer says a Virginia Supreme Court decision on the issue is expected between February and April.
On Jan. 25, the plaintiffs filed a petition to appeal the case to the Virginia Supreme Court after a Richmond circuit court ruled in favor of the statue's removal in October. That same day, state workers installed fencing around the Lee statue to prepare for the possible removal order.
“It is time for this obstruction to end. The courts have carefully considered all the claims and arguments and found that removal of the Lee statue is lawful, and in my opinion, a necessary step as we seek to move forward as a united commonwealth," Attorney General Mark Herring said in a statement after requesting that the state Supreme Court reject the appeal.
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Renderings for a proposed museum on the Lumpkin’s Jail site in Shockoe Bottom. The governor’s budget calls for $9 million to go toward this project. (Image courtesy Smith Group)
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A rendering of the Lumpkin's Jail site museum atrium (Image courtesy Smith Group)
‘Welcoming to Everyone’
As part of the final proposed budget of his term, Northam announced plans in December to invest $25 million in Virginia historical sites. Included in the proposed spending plan is nearly $11 million to kick-start efforts to design, build and install replacements for the Confederate iconography long associated with Monument Avenue. The effort would be spearheaded by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
“We really want to move forward in partnership with VMFA to bring people to the table and make Monument Avenue, which is a beautiful road, welcoming to everyone,” Northam said.
The governor’s proposed budget also calls for $9 million to preserve the Lumpkin’s Jail site with planned investments in a new slavery heritage site and improvements to the Slave Trail in Shockoe Bottom, as well as $100,000 to support the Virginia Emancipation and Freedom Monument project on Brown’s Island.
If the proposed budget is approved by the General Assembly, the VMFA would begin convening experts and consultants including art historians, historic preservation experts and urban planners to conceive new installations along Monument Avenue, VMFA Director Alex Nyerges explained at Northam’s December announcement.
“Inclusivity is going to be the No. 1 watchword, [followed by] healing,” Nyerges said. “One hundred thirty years of having those monuments scar the landscape and scar the souls of the people that have lived in this city and in Virginia is going to take a great deal of thought and effort.”
He expects the multiyear process to begin in fiscal year 2022 and adds that the project would likely require additional funds, calling the initial $11 million investment a “down payment.”
Mayor Stoney says the project could leverage state and city dollars, with added funding from private donors. He has also stressed the importance of soliciting community input once the planning process for the redesign gets underway, emphasizing that the city is working with a clean slate regarding possible replacements. New 2nd District City Councilmember Katherine Jordan, who represents much of Monument Avenue, says it’s critical to include the wider Richmond community in those conversations.
“We need to have robust community engagement [with] neighbors, throughout the district and throughout the city,” she says. “I think everyone feels a degree of ownership of Monument Avenue and interest in seeing a successful next generation of it.”
Dustin Klein and Alex Criqui’s Lee monument art projections have received international attention. (Photo by Ash Daniel)
Lee Monument Resolution
While Confederate symbols have mostly been scrubbed from the historic avenue, the fate of the 12-ton bronze Lee statue and the grassy median it occupies remains uncertain. It has been reclaimed by demonstrators as an impromptu public park, named Marcus-David Peters Circle after the local teacher who was shot and killed by Richmond Police officers in May 2018 while experiencing a mental health crisis.
Since last summer’s protests, it’s also become a symbol of 2020’s national reckoning with race after photos of gatherings at the circle, graffiti left there by protesters and an improvised projection art series at the Lee statue became popular on social media.
The projection art project began in early June and is the brainchild of Dustin Klein and Alex Criqui. The two friends say they were drawn to the statue after they noticed protesters adopting the median as a nightly gathering spot. Their work has featured images of Black victims of police violence like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor alongside civil rights icons like John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr.
“This whole project is really just us reacting, along with the rest of the nation, to the tragedy of George Floyd’s death and this rampant, systemic problem of police violence and violence toward Black people,” Criqui says. “It’s been interesting to see how what’s been happening in Richmond has resonated with people all over the world.”
The project has garnered widespread acclaim. T: The New York Times Style Magazine ranked the graffiti-covered monument and its projected art among the 25 most influential works of American protest art since World War II, while a photograph of the Lee statue enveloped by projected images of George Floyd and “BLM” graced the cover of National Geographic's year in pictures issue in December.
VMFA curator Valerie Cassel Oliver (Photo by Jay Paul)
Finding ways to preserve that potent imagery will be among the issues that the governor’s proposed Monument Avenue redesign commission will need to address, says Valerie Cassel Oliver, the VMFA’s Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.
“The graffiti and projections are a testament to the power of the visual ‘voice’ and a significant way for people to reclaim these public spaces,” says via email. “Preserving these forms of protest is important to documenting and contextualizing recent historic events centered around the monuments in Richmond, which to many enforce racism and oppression.
“We’ve collectively a big task ahead of us in how we treat these spaces [and] what remains. We will attempt to remain a part of the local and national dialogue on this issue.”
