A lawsuit brought by two organizations seeking to stop a museum from melting down the equestrian statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that was at the center of the deadly 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., has been largely dismissed.
A judge last week dismissed key elements of a lawsuit brought by the Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation and the Ratcliffe Foundation, which operate a Civil War battlefield and a history museum respectively. Both had submitted their own offers for the reassignment of Lee’s statue.
The Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation and the Ratcliffe Foundation sought to prevent the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center (JSAAHC) from enacting its plan to melt down Lee’s statue and turn it into a new work of public art. In December 2021, the Charlottesville City Council unanimously chose JSAAHC’s plan as the winning proposal for the use of the controversial monument.
“The lawsuit always felt like an attempt to create a distraction from the whole project,” said Andrea Douglas, executive director of the JSAAHC. The Washington Post. “Our goal is really to start a conversation about public space and how to create those public spaces in the most democratic way possible.”
The Ratcliffe Foundation’s proposal involved moving the statue of Lee and another monument depicting Confederate General Stonewall Jackson to “an outdoor driving museum” in Russell County, Virginia, to be created near the Ellenbrook Museum, a historic home and estate that the foundation operates, and which belonged to Confederate General JEB Stuart. Last May, a judge removed the Ratcliffe Foundation from the case because its corporate status in Virginia had expired.
Last week, Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. ruled that the Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation lacked standing to sue the city of Charlottesville because its own bid for the Lee statue was submitted after the deadline.
The judge said the Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation can still sue the city for violating the City Records Free Access Laws and the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
The 1,100-pound statue, which depicts Lee atop his horse Traveler, was commissioned in 1917 from American sculptor Henry Shrady and, after his death, completed by Italian sculptor Leo Lentelli. It was dedicated in 1924. Following the June 2015 mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in which white supremacist Dylan Roof murdered nine black people, decades-long campaigns to remove monuments and names of prominent Confederates from public spaces gained new urgency and momentum.
In early 2017, the Charlottesville City Council voted 3-2 to remove Lee’s statue, although its removal was blocked by a lawsuit and injunction. In August of that year, white supremacists held the “Unite the Right” rally in part to protest the removal of the statue. During that rally and counter-protests, a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of protesters, injuring dozens and killing Heather Heyer. Shortly after, the statue was wrapped in a black tarp. On July 10, 2021, the city’s Lee and Jackson statues have been deleted.
