After looming over Monument Avenue for more than a century, the massive statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson is gone. For the hundreds who gathered in the rain Wednesday afternoon to celebrate its removal, the moment in history was one they had to witness for themselves.
“It means a lot to me to watch the statue come down,” said Lashawn Jackson, a teacher at Fairfield Middle School in Henrico County, as she watched workers saw away at the statue’s base. “As a Black woman, [I think] it’s just disrespectful, so I’m glad to see something finally happen, and this is just the start. I want all of them to come down.”
Work crews arrived on the site at around 1 p.m., after Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the immediate removal of all city-owned Confederate statues. Stoney used his powers under an extended state-of-emergency declaration for the city from Gov. Ralph Northam, citing the public safety threat the statues pose for demonstrators who may attempt to topple the large bronze monuments themselves.
Their momentum didn’t let up on Thursday morning, as crews successfully removed the nearby statue of Matthew Fontaine Maury, a Confederate navy commander.
The removals follow more than a month of nightly demonstrations throughout the city against police brutality and systemic racial inequities, and while it was seen as a milestone in the local movement, onlookers stressed that it should be the start of a comprehensive set of reforms to policies that disproportionately impact Richmonders of color.
Those inequities were on full display just 3 miles away Wednesday, where demonstrators gathered at the John Marshall Courthouse to protest the end of a statewide moratorium on evictions in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
The RVA Eviction Lab reports there are currently 3,800 eviction cases pending in Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield. According to a Richmond Times-Dispatch report, Richmond sheriff’s deputies pepper-sprayed and detained protesters who gathered at the courthouse.
Back on Monument Avenue, the crowd’s size multiplied as more and more Richmonders eager to see the Jackson statue’s removal gathered to take in the moment as the day progressed. The atmosphere was joyous as groups standing along the blocked-off intersection regularly broke out into chants of “Black lives matter,” “No justice, no peace” and “F--- that statue.” Bonnie Wilmoth and others from the nearby First Baptist Church set up a small stand where they offered free bottles of water to onlookers.
“We just decided to bring them out and try to spread some love and keep people cool and show some compassion,” she said.
Willie Lee, a local construction contractor, says he was surveying a nearby job site with his son Josiah when his wife called him to share the news of the statue’s removal. They raced over to the scene, where Lee said he was proud to share the experience with his 12-year-old son.
“We teach our children to obey the laws, to respect authority when the authority doesn’t respect us, so we’ve had to fight an uphill battle, but now the world is coming together and saying that Black lives do matter,” he said. “This is acknowledging the problem, not fixing it. Anybody can take a statue down, now let’s fix it. Let’s fix our homes, let’s fix our Black businesses.”
Though the day ended with the statue being taken into temporary storage, it began with a somewhat contentious Richmond City Council meeting. At the morning meeting, the council was poised to authorize the removal of Richmond’s city-owned Confederate statues under a new law passed by the General Assembly that took effect Wednesday.
The process set by state legislators calls for a 60-day waiting period to gather public comment and consider where the statues will be relocated, but Stoney called on the council to support their immediate removal.
“It’s time to put an end to the Lost Cause and to fully embrace the righteous cause,” he said. “It’s time to replace the racist symbols of oppression and inequality, symbols that have dominated our landscape, with symbols that represent some of the best in all of our people.”
Haskell Brown, interim city attorney, argued that the council couldn’t vote on the issue because Stoney’s resolution hadn’t been publicly advertised beforehand, and he questioned the legality of Stoney’s order under current law. The mayor, however, remained steadfast in his legal authority to authorize their removal, stressing that the statues don’t need to remain on their pedestals while city leaders gather public input and decide where they’ll be relocated.
“As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to surge, the protesters’ attempts to take down Confederate statues themselves or confront others who are doing so, the risk grows for serious illness, injury or even death,” Stoney said. “We have an urgent need to protect the public.”
During the meeting, Stoney said the removal of city-owned Confederate statues scattered throughout Richmond will cost $1.8 million, which will be taken from the city’s public works budget, though a local fundraising effort called The Fund to Move the Monuments aims to reimburse the city for the cost of their removal.
Local Realtor Shannon Harton is leading the effort with the help of Laura Lafayette, CEO of the Richmond Association of Realtors and chair of the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust. Lafayette says they’ve been in contact with members of the mayor’s administration who have endorsed the private fundraising campaign.
The effort was launched on Monday, and Lafayette says funds raised will be directed in full to the city with the stipulation that they only be used for Confederate statue removal costs, and that any leftover funds be channeled to Richmond Public Schools.
“If we can raise private dollars and not have to divert money from schools, community development, infrastructure, housing and all of the other needs of the city, then by all means, let’s not have to divert those funds,” she says. “Private dollars put those [statues] up, private dollars should take those things down.”
For 9th District City Councilmember Michael Jones, who has championed the removal of Richmond’s Confederate statues since 2017, the multiracial coalition of largely young people who gathered to watch the Jackson statue come down represents hope.
“It’s humbling, and it renders me speechless, it just does,” he said. “[I remember being] a young Black kid who watched movies with the Klan in it, and asking my mom, ‘Are they going to come to my house?’ I remember those nightmares. And now to this? It’s an awesome journey.”