Charlottesville removes Lee Statue

UPDATE: A Confederate monument that helped spark a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, has been hoisted off its stone pedestal and hauled away to storage. Work to remove the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee began early Saturday morning. Crews also took down a statue of Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. The removal of the statues follows years of contention, community anguish and legal fights. A removal push focused on the Lee monument bubbled up in 2016. The monument then became a rallying cry for white supremacists, culminating in the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in which a peaceful counterprotester was killed and dozens of others were injured. 
EARLIER: Charlottesville says a Confederate monument that helped spark a violent white supremacist rally is set to come down Saturday. The city said in a news release Friday afternoon that the equestrian statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee as well as a nearby one of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson will be removed Saturday. The development comes more than five years after a 2016 removal push focused on the Lee statue. As those plans emerged, the monument became a rallying point for white supremacists and other racist groups, culminating in the violent “Unite the Right” rally in 2017.