CHARLOTTESVILLE (WINA) – Charlottesville City Council has voted to donate the Robert E. Lee statue that used to tower over Market Street Park to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center. The center has already started an Indiegogo fundraising campaign to raise $500,000 to melt the statue down, and then refashion the metal into another piece of public art for the city. Council didn’t take the vote until just before the close of the meeting after first deciding to vote about the Lee statue destination at its December 20 meeting, when they’ll also decide to vote on disposition of the Stonewall Jackson and Lewis & Clark-Sacagawea statues.
Councilors were strongly encouraged, and persuaded, by six speakers at the end of the meeting to not wait on the Lee statue vote. Councilor Michael Payne was the first to reverse course and resolve to vote on the Lee statue Monday night, and then Councilor Heather Hill followed — although she would have liked to have had Vice Mayor Sena Magill there for such a big vote. Magill was absent from the meeting. Mayor Nikuyah Walker was the only councilor who had wanted to hold the Lee vote all along.
During the discussion of the statues agenda item, councilors were in agreement they wanted the Lee statue to go to the Jefferson School. However, they also want the Jackson statue to go to LAXART in Los Angeles who has asked for both statues for which they’re willing to pay $100,000. Their purpose is repurposing them to become part of a MONUMENTS exhibit at the Geffen gallery which will feature a collection of decommissioned Confederate monuments displayed alongside contemporary art works. The museum plans on making the Charlottesville statues the exhibit’s centerpiece. The city still has to ask if the museum will accept just one. Former councilor Kristin Szakos was among the late speakers who claimed councilors had enough information last night to make their decision, and that the Jackson statue is the only one among the two Confederate monuments that has any artistic merit.
One of the other late speakers was former blue ribbon statue commission chair Don Gathers who asked, “I’m just wondering how long do you want to make this community wait?”
“How much more do you want to drag out the trauma that these statues represent?”
Councilors also held off a vote on disposition of the Lewis & Clark-Sacagawea statue, but with a clear preference to turn it over to the Lewis & Clark Exploratory Center at Darden Towe Park. That’s currently where the statue is temporarily located. However, Mayor Nikuyah Walker does not want to cede that statue over unless and until the city can receive assurances stipulating the statue will be displayed in proper context in perpetuity. She said she’s not concerned about anyone now, but that governing boards as well as city and county governments change over time, and she doesn’t want changes to be able to be made 5, 10, or 50 years down the line.
