Photo by Jay Paul
Installed in 1890, the colossal state-owned bronze equestrian statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, the work of renowned French artist Antonin Mercié, was the first of five Confederate-related figures that gave Monument Avenue its name and later National Historic Landmark status. Racially charged killings and abuses from Charleston, South Carolina, to Charlottesville stirred some Richmonders toward statue removal in recent years. But it was weeks of protests following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis that finally sparked action. Protesters brought down a statue of Jefferson Davis the following month, then heavy-lifting machinery — and some legal wrangling — cleared Monument Avenue’s remaining Confederate statues from their pedestals last summer, but Lee remained unyielding. His day came on Sept. 8, 2021.
Off his pedestal Lee loomed large. Put together using Ikea-like “insert tab A into slot B” precision, Lee and his mount (not Traveller, but a substitute French thoroughbred) came apart. The figure’s torso was hefted into the air, resembling the top of a collectible Avon decanter. The horse was laid atop truck-tire cushions on a flatbed. The parts went to state property in rural Goochland County. What comes next is unclear.
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