Statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee removed in Richmond

A crowd erupted in cheers and song Wednesday as work crews hoisted an enormous statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee off the giant pedestal where it has towered over Virginia's capital city for more than a century.

The piece, one of America's largest monuments to the Confederacy, was lifted away just before 9 a.m.

The statue of Lee was taken down from its prominent perch after years of resistance and a long court battle. Among the crowd watching the removal, there did not appear to be any visible counter-protesters.

Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the statue taken down last summer, citing the pain felt across the country over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck.

Lee himself opposed the erection of monuments to himself and the Confederacy in his lifetime, writing in 1869 that in his opinion, “I think it wiser, moreover, not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”

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