Confederate statues in Charlottesville to be removed after yearslong legal battle

Two bronze Confederate statues at the center of yearslong debate in Charlottesville, Virginia, will be removed this weekend, officials announced.

Two bronze Confederate statues at the center of yearslong debate in Charlottesville, Virginia, will be removed this weekend, officials announced. The city will remove statues of Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson on Saturday. The removal comes more than five years after the first effort to remove the Lee statue. A year later, the monument became a gathering point for white supremacists who decried the proposal at the "Unite the Right" rally in August 2017, which led to rioting and left one woman dead. Only the statues themselves will be removed Saturday; the stone bases will be left in place temporarily and removed at a later date.