Gov. Ralph Northam (D) announced June 4 that he would take down the Lee statue, which towers 60 feet over Richmond’s grandest residential boulevard, and put it in storage. The action was partly in response to ongoing demonstrations over police brutality against African Americans nationwide, which in Richmond have focused on the city’s extensive Confederate iconography.
On June 8, Richmond Circuit Judge Bradley B. Cavedo granted a temporary injunction to block the state from taking down the 130-year-old statue, responding to a lawsuit filed by a descendant of the couple who signed the deed giving land for the monument to the state. Continue reading.