Gen. Robert E. Lee statue comes down

Crowds cheered, sang, and chanted as workers hoisted the 21-foot-tall Confederate statue off of its granite pedestal on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va. Witnesses shouted, “Whose streets? Our streets!” when the statue was lowered to the ground. Gov. Ralph Northam ordered its removal last summer during anti-racism and anti-police protests across the nation. Residents opposed to the removal filed lawsuits citing 1887 and 1890 agreements to preserve the statue. On Sept. 2, the Virginia Supreme Court unanimously ruled that those obligations no longer applied.

What happened next? Crews then sawed the bronze statue in half for transportation to an undisclosed, state-owned location while the government debates what to do with it. The granite pedestal will stay for the time being. Workers will remove commemorative plaques and a time capsule from the pedestal on Thursday. Lee’s statue was the last of four Confederate memorials on Monument Avenue in the former Confederacy capital. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts will begin redesigning the street with community input.

Dig deeper: Listen to Anna Johansen Brown’s report on time capsules in Confederate statues on The World and Everything In It podcast.