Qualla: Robert E. Lee Monument (Charlottesville, Virginia)

Robert E. Lee Monument (Charlottesville, Virginia): Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Artaxerxes, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the morning of July 10, 2021, a flatbed truck rolled into Market Street Park in downtown Charlottesville and carried away a thirteen-ton bronze man on a thirteen-ton bronze horse. The statue had stood on that square for ninety-seven years. The fight over whether it should stay had run for nearly a decade, killed a woman named Heather Heyer in August 2017, sparked a Virginia Supreme Court ruling, and finally ended in a foundry in October 2023, when the bronze was cut into pieces and fed to a furnace. What survives now sits in storage as a stack of ingots.

Image: Artaxerxes | CC BY-SA 4.0

Robert E. Lee Monument (Charlottesville, Virginia): The Statue That Stood Here

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit photo by Billy Hathorn, CC BY-SA 3.0. Paul Goodloe McIntire was a Charlottesville stockbroker who returned home wealthy and wanted to leave his mark on his city. In 1917 he commissioned an equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee, Confederate general, mounted on his horse Traveller, from the sculptor Henry Shrady. McIntire...

Image: photo by Billy Hathorn | CC BY-SA 3.0

Robert E. Lee Monument (Charlottesville, Virginia): The Vote and the Lawsuits

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The original uploader was Carptrash at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0. In March 2016, Charlottesville Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy publicly called for the statue's removal, saying it disrespected parts of the community and that some residents refused to set foot in the park. The City Council appointed a Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Monuments and Public...

Image: The original uploader was Carptrash at English Wikipedia. | CC BY-SA 3.0

Robert E. Lee Monument (Charlottesville, Virginia): August 12, 2017

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kirycon, CC BY-SA 4.0. Long before the courts ruled, the debate over the Lee statue had drawn the country's attention. On May 13, 2017, the white nationalist Richard Spencer led a torch-lit rally in the park, chanting against removal. Three months later, on August 12, 2017, a much larger gathering call...

Image: Kirycon | CC BY-SA 4.0

Robert E. Lee Monument (Charlottesville, Virginia): Removal and the Furnace

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AgnosticPreachersKid, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the city announced on July 9, 2021, that the Lee Monument would be lifted the next morning, crowds gathered in the park. Cheers rose as the bronze figure was hoisted free of the pedestal Henry Shrady had designed. Both the Lee and the nearby Stonewall Jackson statues came do...

Image: AgnosticPreachersKid | CC BY-SA 4.0

Robert E. Lee Monument (Charlottesville, Virginia): What the Park Holds Now

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Artaxerxes, CC BY-SA 4.0. Market Street Park is a city block of grass, paths, and shade trees in downtown Charlottesville, two blocks from the historic Court Square. The stone pedestal where Lee and Traveller once stood was removed after the statue. From the air the park reads as a green rectangle inserte...

Image: Artaxerxes | CC BY-SA 4.0