The issue of what to do with confederate monuments popped up in Charlottesville last night when a candidate for governor called city council members fascists. They have voted to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from Lee Park. Sandy Hausman has more on the campaign rally that drew about a hundred people.
Corey Stewart was once Donald Trump’s campaign manager in Virginia. Now he’s running for governor – attacking city officials in Charlottesville for their decision to take down a statue of Robert E. Lee.
“They are truly tyrants – despicable people!” he told about 100 people on the downtown mall.
That made sense to the protesters.
“This isn’t about black history or white history,” said Dawn Kingsley of Buckingham. “This is about American history. This is the melting pot. Good and bad has happened in this country, and it should all be remembered.”
“Maybe this person stood for bad. Maybe they stood for good,” reasoned Sheldon Finkelstein of Fredericksburg. “If you hide history, you’re blinding your children.”
Jane Taylor agreed. “Personally,” she said, “I don’t believe in slavery, but it’s part of history. We learn from our past to do better in the future.”
And if the city did move the sculpture, her husband Henry vowed to take revenge by burning books and memorabilia on Martin Luther King.
“I love him. He’s a great man, but I will burn it up if they take the statue down, not because I don’t like Martine Luther King. For vengeance. If they want to destroy my history, I’ll destroy their history,” he explained.
Candidate Stewart also won cheers when he called on the crowd to assume control of the University of Virginia:
“The liberal wacko left has taken it over,” he proclaimed. “The question I have for you is are we going to take UVA back?”
The crowd roared in the affirmative.
Protesters held signs that read Confederate Heroes Matter, Hands Off Our Monuments and Honor All Veterans. They cheered as a white supremacist named Jason Kessler attacked efforts to take down the Lee statue.
“If the liberals are allowed to start destroying our history, they move on to Thomas Jefferson, they move on to George Washington, and soon the entire basis of our society is going to be wrecked,” Kessler said. “What’s going to be left is their utopian Marxist philosophy.”
As the rally ended, some members of the crowd headed into city hall, where they asked members of council to leave General Lee in place and use the money they would have spent to remove the statue on homeless people, hungry children and adults who need work.