With Confederates vanquished, what's next for Richmond's Monument Avenue?
Onlookers cheered as crews lifted a bronze likeness of Robert E. Lee off a 40-foot-tall, state-owned pedestal Wednesday.
Officials say they plan to move what had been the country’s largest remaining Confederate statue into temporary storage. From there, its fate is TBD, as are plans for Monument Avenue as a whole — a boulevard built to showcase Confederate statuary.
“I think there’s a lot of opportunities, not just here at the circle but the whole treelined street,” Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney said as crews worked behind him.
Last summer Stoney oversaw the removal of four city-owned Confederate statues along the street. Gov. Ralph Northam announced plans to take down Lee around the same time, but was delayed by legal challenges only resolved last week.
Neither Richmond nor the state have made any decisions about what to do next, instead charging the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts with leading “a community-driven effort to reimagine Monument Avenue.”
Read more: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2021/09/08/with-confederates-vanquished-whats-next-for-richmonds-monument-avenue/