Charlottesville’s City Council has voted to remove two Confederate statues that were the focus of the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally.
Several dozen people spoke during Monday night’s public hearing. Nearly all of them spoke in favor of removing the statues and many pleaded with city council to not allow them to be moved to some other location or community.
"And so I’m assuming that you all would never decide to just push these statues off to be some other community’s problem. Please don’t send them somewhere else," Cat Mayberry told councilors. Don Gathers echoed that sentiment. "If my trash ends up in a neighbor’s yard, it’s still trash,” he said.
Many speakers also said the statues should be removed quickly, and before the fourth anniversary of the violent 2017 white supremacist rally.
There is a required 30-day window for Charlottesville to offer the statues of Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson to any museum, historical society, or military battlefield. But by July 8th, the city manager can take action, like having them covered or removed and placed in storage.
By late Monday night, the city had posted the required "request for interest"on its website.
