RICHMOND (Virginia, US): Workers have begun dismantling the pedestals that exalted Richmond’s Confederate monuments for more than a century.

The city announced that the remnants of Civil War-era memorials are being taken down in the former capital of the Confederacy, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the monuments removed amid demonstrations for racial justice in 2020.

Richmond is paying Team Henry Enterprises $1.6 million to remove pedestals that held up four statues along Monument Avenue, as well as four others around the city. The Newport News-based company took down the city’s Robert E. Lee statue last year, and a shell company associated with it removed more than a dozen of Richmond’s Confederate memorials in 2020.

The monument for Confederate Gen. A. P. Hill that still stands at a city intersection will also be dismantled. Richmond officials said all the work could last as long as two months, depending on the Hill removal which will require his buried remains to be taken out from underneath the statue.

Last week, the city council unanimously voted to authorise giving the monuments to the Black History Museum and Cultural Centre of Virginia. It’ll work with The Valentine, a Richmond history museum, as well as other cultural organisations and the public to decide what to do with the materials.

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2022