Charlottesville City Council has voted to remove a statue of Civil War general Robert E. Lee and rename Lee Park. After months of contentious debate, council has given city officials two months to figure out how to move the monument.
Charlottesville’s mayor Mike Signer was one of the two who voted against the motion, saying he's worried about the effect of removing something offensive, rather than giving it context.
"To move forward we must visibly and transparently push against the past, that we must see and defy these monuments to overcome what they mean," he said during his statement at the meeting.
Charlottesville is not alone in grappling with this issue. The question of what to do with confederate monuments has perplexed local officials from Alexandria, to Danville.
It was a topic of conversation in Richmond's mayoral race, where current governor Levar Stoney said removing the statues in his city would not be a priority. Instead, he said he would work to address what he calls another confederate legacy: systemic poverty that disproportionately affects African-Americans.
