Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia may need a new name soon.
Virginia has always been the state with the most Confederate statues, but in recent weeks, and especially in the city that was once the Confederacy’s capital, the statues have been falling. Construction crews removed Stonewall Jackson and Matthew Fontaine Maury from Monument Avenue in Richmond last week, with more statues expected to drop on Monday.
But a very prominent monument towering above Richmond still stands.
The six-story-tall statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, a state-owned monument that Governor Ralph Northam has vowed to dismantle, is stuck in court, thanks to a court order on a fact the state signed when took on the statue Essentially, when the statue arrived in Richmond in the late 1800s, the state told area owners that it would keep the monument intact, and the plaintiffs argue that if the statue were removed, the state would be violating its promise original.
“The problem in the Richmond Lee case is what we call private law, which is that a property claim is made here that the state made promises to private owners more than 100 years ago,” said Richard Schragger, a law professor. at the University of Virginia.
“When the state took the property and accepted the statue, it promised local property owners that it would keep the statue intact in perpetuity … It’s like a claim that your neighbor promised you, say you live in a homeowners association, that they would never use his property to build a service station. “
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Schragger said the Richmond case is particularly complicated because the court is weighing the “applicability” of the agreement. In the current political climate, in which Confederate monuments are being withdrawn, it is difficult to argue that the state’s promise to landowners should last forever, he said.
The mandate was originally for 10 days, but was extended indefinitely. It is unclear when the court will move forward, but advocates of removing the statue, such as Richmond City Council member Michael Jones, remain optimistic.
“I don’t think the term will last long … I’ve been dealing with Lee and all these other statues for three years. I don’t think they have a legal leg to resist,” Jones said of the plaintiffs. “These are just their last attempts. They will continue to try, but it will decrease. It will decrease.”
Jones helped start efforts to remove Richmond’s Confederate monuments after seeing what happened at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. Protester Heather Heyer was killed by a white supremacist, one of the many who gathered in Lee Park after the City Council voted to remove the Lee statue. The monument was covered and cordoned off for a few months, but has remained standing.
And now, even with Virginia law amended to allow localities to remove or relocate Confederate monuments, the Charlottesville City Hall and thus the Lee statue remain caught up in a legal battle that originated in the original council vote .
The plaintiffs argued that removing the Lee statue in Charlottesville would violate state law that prevented localities from doing exactly that. A judge issued a permanent injunction last year, but on Wednesday the law changed. That leaves the council in limbo.
“We can’t do anything until the courts allow us to,” said Deputy Mayor Heather Hill.
“Although state law has changed, that court order must first be removed by a judge. And we are proceeding [with] the appeals process and the removal of the court order, but before we can do anything else, that piece must be dealt with legally, “Hill said.
As in the Richmond case, the timeline for removing the court order in the Charlottesville case is also unclear. Schragger said that due to legal complications, the circuit court in the Charlottesville case could delay the process for a long time. It may be a “cleaner” strategy as the city expects the state Supreme Court to intervene.
Meanwhile, Charlottesville is preparing for the third anniversary of the deadly rally. The street where Heyer was killed is still decorated with flowers and chalk messages. And just a few blocks away, the Robert E. Lee statue still stands.
