NORFOLK, Va. — Crews have removed a 113-year-old statue of a Confederate solider that stood atop an 80-foot-tall Confederate monument in downtown Norfolk, Virginia.
The city said in a statement Friday that the statue, nicknamed Johnny Reb, came down in less than two hours.
The 15-foot-figure was removed out of concern for public safety. A protester had suffered life-threatening injuries in the neighboring city of Portsmouth after demonstrators pulled down a confederate statue in that city on Wednesday.
Norfolk’s city council members passed a resolution expressing their desire to remove the statue after a violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017. But a state law protecting memorials to war veterans prohibited Norfolk from doing so.
That law was rewritten earlier this year by the new Democratic majority at the General Assembly and will give localities the ability to decide what to do with monuments. Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander acknowledged that the new version doesn’t go into effect until July 1 but said he thinks public safety trumps waiting.
He said the remaining pieces of the column would be taken down in coming weeks.
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