Confederate statues on chopping block

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced plans on Thursday to take down the state-owned monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in the capital city of Richmond. Mayor Levar Stoney is pushing for the removal of four other statues of Confederate leaders along the city’s historic Monument Avenue. Demonstrators have covered all five statues in graffiti during protests over last week’s death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. “I believe in a Virginia that studies its past in an honest way,” Northam, a Democrat, said.

Are other statues coming down? The city of Norfolk, Va., plans to take down its 80-foot monument to the Confederacy in July. The United Daughters of the Confederacy on Tuesday dismantled a memorial to soldiers on a street in Alexandria, Va. And Birmingham, Ala., city officials removed a Confederate obelisk from its base on Monday night after protesters attempted to take it down.

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, read an excerpt from Jemar Tisby’s The Color of Compromise about Christian complicity with racism after the Civil War.