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Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced on Thursday plans to remove a statue honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Richmond’s historic Monument Avenue, a move that comes amid a national reckoning with America’s complicated racial history.
“That statue has been there for a long time. It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now. So we’re taking it down,” Northam, a Democrat, said during a news event in Richmond.
Northam said he would be directing the Department of General Services to remove the statue “as soon as possible” and it will go into storage while they “work with the community to determine its future.”
“Make no mistake, removing a symbol is important but it’s only a step. It doesn’t mean problems are solved. There are still monuments of inequalities that exist in our commonwealth and in this country,” the governor said, calling for change and healing.
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