It was a unanimous vote in Charlottesville, Va. Tuesday to remove a statue of Gen. Thomas “Stonewall Jackson, NBC affiliate WVIR reported. With five in favor and none against, the city council decided to take down the statue of the Virginia-born Confederate hero who is routinely recognized throughout the world as a military genius.
Since the council first announced its plans to remove a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, and the subsequent riots between white supremacists and Antifa activists, Charlottesville has been ground zero for the continuing debate on how Confederate leaders should be acknowledged in U.S. history.
The council also decided to quickly find an alternate location for the Lee statue.
Councilman Bob Fenwick commented on the city’s decision by declaring both statues “should be in a museum” and not in a public park.
“If people stop and think, we have no statues, that I know of, to George Washington in Charlottesville, and yet none of us have forgotten his history,” Fenwick told WVIR. “So this argument that we have to keep it to preserve history, to me, is irrelevant.”
Many of the local residents will not forget the council’s decision.
Since then, it has been open season on Confederate monuments across the U.S., though Alabama recently opened a new site commemorating unknown Confederate soldiers. President Donald Trump has indicated that national parks have no plans to remove the controversial icons.
Opponents of the monument removal argue that it is nothing but the politically correct airbrushing of history while supporters suggest the it is inappropriate to honor any Confederate leaders, stating that in fighting for the South, they defended slavery.
Virginia state legislation from 1998 actually outlaws the removal, damage or defacement of war monuments by municipal governments — but those in favor of monument removal say it shouldn’t apply to those edifices that were put in place prior to the legislation becoming law.