Bronze Statue of Robert E Lee That Sparked Charlottesville’s Unite The Right Rally Is Secretly Melted Down by City’s Black History Museum: Owner Says ‘They Can’t Put Humpty Dumpty Back Together’
The statue of General Robert E. Lee that sparked the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville has been secretly melted down by the city’s Black History Museum.
The statue of Lee, a prominent slave owner and respected general of the Confederate Army, was removed from its pedestal in Charlottesville, Virginia, in July 2021.
Following Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd and the infamous Unite the Right rally in 2017, the city council voted to remove it.
After being torn down more than two years ago, the statue has now been secretly melted down in a southern foundry.
According to The Washington Postthe statue was cut into fragments and then dissolved in a furnace at a secret location for fear of backlash.
The 26-foot bronze statue of General Robert E. Lee was removed from its base in July 2021
White supremacist groups had fought to keep the statue from being torn down, with the infamous ‘Unite the Right rally’ gathering at the statue.
Hundreds of Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Nazis and other white nationalists poured into Charlottesville for one of the largest gatherings of white supremacists.
The Washington Post said the Charlottesville Black History Museum acquired the statue and had it melted down.
Andrea Douglas, director of the museum, told the newspaper: “Well, they can’t put Humpty Dumpty back together.”
The Post said bronze blocks from the Lee statue will be used by a group known as ‘Swords Into Plowshares’ to create a public artwork to be displayed in Charlottesville.
The newspaper quoted the foundry’s owner, a black man who was not identified, as saying it was an “honor” to melt down the statue.
He added: ‘The risk is being targeted by hateful people, damaging my business and threatening family and friends.
βIf you are approached with such an honor, especially to destroy hatred, you should do so.
Portrait of General Robert E. Lee, officer of the Confederate Army, from the Library of Congress
The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee will be removed in July 2021 in Charlottesville, Virginia
βIt is time to dismantle this hatred, this infection that is ravaging our beautiful country.β
Opponents argue that the statues of Confederate generals were built not as memorials, but as a means to intimidate African Americans and glorify white supremacy.
However, advocates say efforts to remove Confederate statues are an attempt to erase history.
White supremacists rallied against the state by torchlight in May 2017, after a small group of Klansmen in July far outnumbered peaceful protesters.
The issue came to a head in August, when white supremacist and neo-Nazi organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally gathered in the city to defend Lee’s statue.
They used the issue for publicity and gathered in what was the largest gathering of extremists in at least a decade.
They brawled with anti-racist counter-protesters in the street, while police largely watched.
In August 2017, white supremacists marched on Charlottesville to protest the removal of Confederate war memorials in the South
A group of white activists participate in a torch relay through the University of Virginia campus prior to the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville in August 2017
White supremacists gather under the statue of Robert E. Lee during the Unite The Right rally
A short time later, James Alex Fields Jr. β an outspoken white supremacist and admirer of Adolf Hitler β deliberately drove his car into a crowd of people, killing Heather Heyer, 32, and leaving others with life-changing injuries.
Fields entered a guilty plea to federal hate crimes charges in a deal that kept him from potentially facing the death penalty for killing the anti-racism activist.
He admitted deliberately driving his speeding car into a crowd of anti-racism protesters as he entered his guilty plea.
Fields was convicted of first-degree murder and other state charges for killing Heyer and injuring others
Following the Unite The Right rally in August 2017, the Lee statue was covered with black tarps on and off for a period of six months.
Heather Heyer (left) was murdered by white nationalist Alex Fields Jr (right), during a counter-protest in Charlottesville in August 2017
In Richmond, another statue of General Lee was also removed in September 2021 amid fanfare from BLM protesters.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam made the decision to remove the statue last year, 10 days after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
The statue was erected in 1890, 25 years after the end of the Civil War and 20 years after Lee’s death.
It was funded by the Lee Monument Commission, established in 1886, which was led by Lee’s cousin, former Virginia Governor Fitzhugh Lee.
Children are seen playing near the recently unveiled Emancipation and Freedom Monument
After the removal of that statue of Lee, a new monument to Virginia’s African Americans who fought for emancipation was unveiled just two miles away from the site.
Designed by Oregon sculptor Thomas Jay Warren, the monument features two 11-foot bronze statues of newly freed slaves.
In a statement after Richmond’s statue was removed, Gov. Ralph Northam said, “This has been a long time coming, part of the healing process so that Virginia can move forward and be a welcoming state with inclusivity and diversity.”
He added that it represented “400 years of history that we should not be proud of.”