A 130-year-old statue erected in Richmond, Virginia was removed Monday.
The monument of General A.P. Hill was the last Confederate statue left under the ownership of the city, though other state-owned Confederate moments remain.
Unlike other statues that Richmond began removing during the 2020 George Floyd protests, there were delays in its removal because Hill’s monument was also where the Confederate army official was buried.
Hill’s remains, which were interred at the base of the monument, were removed Tuesday amid conflict at the memorial site.
Members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans attended the removal wearing the confederate flag on their apparel. According to CBS affiliate WKTR, a Black Richmond resident named Devin Curtis approached the group and asked why they donned the flag. A white man in the crowd “defended the symbol, the discussion grew loud, and others joined in on both sides, several of them armed.”
Indirect descendants of Hill argued in court that the site was a cemetery and they had the right to move the monument and the remains.
However, a judge ruled in October that the descendants did not establish ownership of the monument, “which was created after Hill’s death and therefore could not be his property,” nor did they “provide any evidence that they had paid for or maintained the monument site,” VPM, an NPR affiliate, reports.
It still hasn’t been decided where the statue will be located, though there have been plans to transfer it to The Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia.
