After several years of tensions focused on the slavery past of the United States, the most important monument denounced as a racist symbol in the country was debunked Wednesday in Virginia: the gigantic statue of General Lee, the former commander of the Southerners.
Having sat enthroned for over 130 years on its 12-meter-high pedestal, the equestrian statue was gently lowered by a crane in Richmond, the former secessionist capital during the Civil War of 1861-1865.
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Hundreds of people had gathered from a distance to attend the event. Some waved their fists, let out jokes or cheers when the imposing bronze piece, the work of French artist Antonin Mercié, was torn from its plinth. The main Confederate military leader, Robert Lee fought with the southern states against those in the North who had abolished slavery. This withdrawal
"erases a stain on the history of Virginia and the history of America,"
confided Muhammad Abdul-Rahman, a local association official.
While many Confederate monuments across the country were recently disassembled on the sly - sometimes in the middle of the night - under pressure from the Black Lives Matter movement, the Democratic Governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, wished to give a national impact to this unbolting.
The monuments celebrating Robert Lee and the other great figures of the Southern States are today seen as racist symbols by a good part of the Americans, others considering on the contrary that they are part of their historical heritage.
The question remains sensitive.
George Floyd effect
Governor Northam had announced his intention to remove the statue of the Confederate General in June 2020, ten days after the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, asphyxiated under the knee of a white policeman. The homicide of this African-American sparked a worldwide movement denouncing racial discrimination and vigorously revived the debate on the country's slavery past. A judicial guerrilla war launched by supporters of keeping the Confederate statue - the largest in the country - in place - delayed the dismantling, finally validated last week by a decision of the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Proudly riding his thoroughbred, reins in hand, Robert Lee has a deliberately domineering posture. His statue, weighing 12 tons, peaked at the height of a six-story building. Once on the ground, the bronze work was cut with a saw, at the level of the general's belt. The two pieces were then taken away by flatbed truck.
"Whose street is this?" Ours!"
, chanted the witnesses gathered on “Monument Avenue”, this Richmond boulevard marked out until 2020 with other statues to the glory of the losers of the Civil War.
This normally peaceful neighborhood has in fact become an epicenter of tension and contestation, as evidenced by the base of the statue, stained with graffiti and slogans calling on the police in particular to
"be accountable".
Given the sensitivity of the monument, the authorities had taken draconian security measures, temporarily banning traffic around the perimeter, drone overflights also being prohibited on Wednesday.
Richmond
"is no longer the capital of the Confederation,
" said Levar Stoney, the African-American mayor of this city located south of Washington.
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Further in the same state of Virginia, another controversial equestrian statue of General Lee, in Charlottesville, sparked violence in the summer of 2017, a white extremist going so far as to crash into a crowd of anti-racist protesters in his car, killing a young wife. At the time, Republican President Donald Trump believed that debunking the statues of Southern officers was tantamount to
"tearing"
the history of the United States
to pieces
. The equestrian monument to the glory of General Lee "will be stored in a safe place under the responsibility of the state pending a decision on a suitable final place to exhibit it," the governor said in a statement.