June 3, 2020
By Barnini Chakraborty | Fox News
RICHMOND, Va. – Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced Thursday the removal of one of the country's most iconic monuments to the Confederacy — a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee along Richmond's bucolic tree-lined Monument Avenue.
"We are here to chart a new course in Virginia's history," Northam said. "We are here to be honest about our past and talk about our future."
Northam said Virginia had set "high ideals" in the past 400 years about freedom and equality but had "fallen short" of them.
Taking down the Lee monument is an extraordinary victory for civil rights activists who have long called for its removal. Several efforts in the past to remove the statue have been fought bitterly and failed.
Ahead of the governor's announcement, hundreds gathered around the Lee monument.
Lee's statue will be sent to a storage facility.