Virginia's Memorials

From USA Today:

“Confederate memorials can be removed by local governments, Va. lawmakers say”

Some Confederate memorials in Virginia may soon come down after lawmakers finalized a bill that removes state protections for the memorials and allows towns, cities and counties to decide their fate. Democrats in Virginia's House and Senate finalized the bill over the weekend. It gives localities the power to "remove, relocate, contextualize or cover" any memorial for war veterans, including those for the Civil War. The bill's passage comes more than two years after the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, which was initially organized to protest the city's plan to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. The protest spiraled into violence in August 2017, and a neo-Nazi rammed his car into a crowd, killing a woman. "It’s a huge step, but it’s just one more step in a long process," Democratic state Del. Sally Hudson, who represents Charlottesville, told the Virginia Mercury. “In the short term what it means is this decision-making will go back to Charlottesville where it belongs. Localities around the U.S. removed Confederate statues in the wake of the violence, but in Virginia, state law protected them. Many Democrats had been pushing to change that law because critics say the memorials are racist symbols honoring slave-holding men. "My family has lived with the trauma of slavery for generations," Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax said last week. "I hope that you understand that this situation is so much deeper than a simple vote on simple war memorials." The bill requires localities to hold a public hearing before voting to remove the memorials. Localities must also seek to give the memorial to a "museum, historical society, government or military battlefield," but local governments ultimately have the final say on what happens to them. Cemeteries and the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington are exempt. Confederate general Stonewall Jackson taught at the institute, which houses a large statue of him. Those who opposed the bill expressed concern over preserving the history they say the memorials represent. Republican Amanda Chase condemned slavery as evil, "but it doesn’t mean that we take all of these monuments down," she said last week. "We remember our past and we learn from it." Gov. Ralph Northam, who was embroiled in a blackface scandal last year and said he would focus on addressing racial inequality in Virginia's past in the rest of his term, is expected to sign the bill. "This legislation was a priority for Governor Northam, who has long advocated to give localities authority over the monuments in their communities. He is proud to see this measure pass and looks forward to it reaching his desk," Northam spokeswoman Alena Yarmosky said.  Earlier this year, Virginia lawmakers passed a bill that would end a state holiday honoring Confederate military leaders Lee and Jackson and establish Election Day as a holiday instead. They also voted to remove racist laws, including those concerning school segregation and housing discrimination, still on the books in Virginia.

^ Richmond, Virginia was the capital of the Confederacy and so this has even more pull than if it was just any other State. I believe that every Confederate symbol (monuments, memorials, things named after a Confederate, etc.) needs to be removed. The monuments and memorials should be placed in museums so that future generation understand how even though the Confederacy lost the Civil War their descendants continued to praise them and use their racism to keep minorities discriminated against well into the 1960s (100 years after the Civil War ended.) While the Confederacy and its lingering effects (with Jim Crow) are a horrible and disgusting stain on our country’s history it is a history we can not ignore. That’s why we need to remove the things honoring the Confederacy and at the same time remember all the discrimination and evil associated with it. ^

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/09/confederate-memorials-virginia-can-removed-localities-bill/4999398002/