Richmond Removes Its Last Public Confederate Monument

Topline

The city of Richmond removed the statue of former Confederate General A.P. Hill Monday, the last of its public Confederate monuments, concluding a two-year effort by city officials and protestors to remove memorials to the Confederacy in its former capital.

Key Facts

A 130-year-old statue memorializing Hill, a former Confederate general, was removed by construction workers before 10 a.m. Monday.

The process to remove Hill’s statue has taken longer than other efforts because it contains his remains, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported, though a lawsuit brought forward by Hill’s indirect descendants arguing they should decide where his statue and remains should be moved was shot down by Judge David Cheek in October.

Cheek ruled in favor of the city moving the statue to the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, while Hill’s remains will be reburied in Culpeper, Virginia, near where he was born.

Mayor Levar Stoney called the removal “the last day of the lost cause,” according to Axios, adding that Richmond had completed its project to remove memorials to the Confederacy and “can turn the next page.”

Crucial Quote

“This decision, and the eventual removal of the last monument to the lost cause, sends the message loud and clear that our past doesn’t define our future,” Stoney tweeted following the October ruling. “We can and will heal, and we will be stronger for it.”

Tangent

Several monuments honoring the Confederacy were torn down in Richmond by protestors in June 2020, including memorials to Williams Carter Wickham, Jefferson Davis and the Richmond Howitzers artillery unit, following a surge of protests after the murder of George Floyd. During the protests, all major monuments in Richmond to the Confederacy were defaced with graffiti. Ensuing protests resulted in the burning of the United Daughters of the Confederacy Headquarters, according to the Virginia Mercury. Other cities in Virginia, home to the onetime capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, had more statues toppled or damaged by protestors in the following weeks, including Roanoke and Portsmouth. In total, 168 symbols honoring the Confederacy were removed across the U.S. in 2020, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Key Background

Hill’s remains have resided inside the statue memorializing him since 1891, decades after he was killed by a Union soldier at the Third Battle of Petersburg in April 1865. His body had previously been buried in cemeteries in Chesterfield and Pittsylvania counties before it moved to its current site in Richmond. The removal of Hill’s statue marks the 11th Confederate memorial to be disassembled since 2020, while a statue honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee was the last to be torn down by city officials after it was disassembled in September 2021.

Further Reading

Confederate Monument Set To Be Removed From Virginia Capital (AP)

Virginia Tears Down Richmond’s Robert E. Lee Statue, The Largest Confederate Monument In The U.S. (Forbes)