WHEN THE General Assembly voted last year to give localities the power to remove monuments and statues erected on public property, including those honoring the Confederacy, that power came with conditions. One of the conditions was that these historic artifacts were not to be destroyed.
Sen. Bryce Reeves, R-Spotsylvania, reminded members of the Richmond Planning Commission of that in a June 15 letter, noting that he was one of six legislators from the state Senate and House of Delegates who hammered out the language of the final version of the War Monuments and Memorials bill in a conference committee before it was signed into law by Gov. Ralph Northam.
Months later, during violent protests that erupted in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the removal of four statues from the city’s Monument Avenue, itself a National Historical Landmark, including bronze likenesses of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
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An injunction stemming from a lawsuit challenging the removal of the 131-year-old Lee equestrian statue temporarily halted its removal. On June 8, the Virginia Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case. In the meantime, the other removed statues are being stored at the city’s wastewater treatment plant until a final determination of what to do with them is made.
“Regardless of impassioned sentiment and opinions over the monuments,” they “represent the highest levels of artistic achievements during the ‘City Beautiful Movement’ in America,” Reeves’ letter noted.
And under the law, “localities only have the authority to ‘remove, relocate or cover’ these monuments,” he explained. “Only the Virginia Department of Historic Resources can provide ‘contextualization’.” And since the words “alteration” and “destruction” were specifically stripped out of the final draft as a legislative compromise, any locality that significantly alters or destroys such monuments is in violation of state law.
“The legislation provided a reasonable solution for localities while preserving these works of art for others that recognize their artistic significance,” Reeves pointed out. “You can love them or hate them, but you cannot alter or destroy them.”
That’s not just one Republican state senator’s opinion. That’s the consensus of the bipartisan conference committee and Gov. Ralph Northam, who signed the bill forbidding the monuments’ destruction. And that’s the law.
This is indeed a reasonable resolution to the ongoing controversy over statues on public land.
Localities aren’t forced to live with war memorials that clash with their contemporary version of history, but they’re not allowed to destroy historic artifacts either. The final destination for Confederate monuments should be the cemeteries where soldiers who died for the Lost Cause are buried, and where future generations can ponder the awful waste of human life that defenders of the repugnant institution of slavery unleashed on the republic.