The violence that erupted in Charlottesville last weekend over plans to remove a Robert E. Lee statue has many other localities hastening to remove monuments to the Confederacy in their midst.
On Thursday, Sen. Mark Warner said such a decision should be left to each Virginia municipality.
“And I think each community is going to have to have a process,” said Warner. “Have all voices heard. And it’s going to be a challenging process. And I think it’s long overdue.”
In Virginia, though, that might not be so easy.
State lawmakers gave localities a free hand to erect monuments for any war or conflict, from the Algonquin War of 1622 to the Iraq War.
But it appears lawmakers specifically tied the hands of those localities when it comes to taking them down again.
Section 15.2-1812 of the Virginia State Code states that “if such are erected, it shall be unlawful for the authorities of the locality, or any other person or persons, to disturb or interfere with any monuments or memorials.”
That includes removing, damaging or defacing them, or in the case of the “War Between the States, the placement of Union markings or monuments on previously designated Confederate memorials or the placement of Confederate markings or monuments on previously designated Union memorials.” Any such offense is a misdemeanor.
If that’s the case, Warner said, “I would hope that if a local community in an appropriate process thought that statues should be moved or changed to a different location, that the General Assembly would try to work with that community.”
The issue is more than moot. Baltimore began removing its Confederate statues overnight Wednesday, and other cities are moving to do the same, or exploring their legal options to do so. Hampton Roads also has Confederate monuments, memorials and namesake structures.
“We’ve got to make sure that all parts of Virginia history — the good, the bad and the ugly — are all told,” Warner said.
As governor in early 2002, he said he noticed that monuments in Capitol Square Park in downtown Richmond were all honoring white males, so he raised private funds to add a civil rights memorial to Barbara Johns.
At the age of 16, Johns led a student strike for equal education at her Farmville high school. The ensuing lawsuit led to the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that “separate but equal” education was unconstitutional.
Warner was critical Thursday of President Donald Trump’s failure to clearly and consistently rebuke the hate groups behind the Charlottesville protests that led to the killing of a counter-protester and the deaths of two state troopers whose helicopter crashed while monitoring the events.
“Since the tragedy in Charlottesville, except for one brief moment on Monday afternoon when the president called out the perpetrators of this violence — the hate groups that descended on Charlottesville, the neo-Nazies, the KKK, the white supremacists — the president, other than that one moment, has frankly not shown leadership,” Warner said. “He’s been divisive. He’s not been willing to call the country together.”
Trump has said there was violence “on many sides” over the weekend, when white nationalists and counter-demonstraters clashed in the streets.
Contact Dietrich at 757-247-7892 or tdietrich@dailypress.com. Follow on Twitter at DP_Dietrich
