Good Riddance to Robert E. Lee

Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, the city of Charlottesville, Va., city council has voted to remove an imposing statue of Robert E. Lee (and the horse he never rode in on) from Lee Park, and to rename and redesign the park.

The statue of this non-Charlottesvillian had been put up in a whites-only park during the 1920s at the whim of an extremely wealthy and racist individual. So, for a representative government to vote, following a very public deliberative process with voluminous and diverse input from city residents is — if nothing else — a step toward democracy.

I think it’s much more as well. There are two issues at stake here, neither of them dead issues from the past. One is race. The other is war.

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