More than six years after protesters in Richmond toppled an iconic statue of Jefferson Davis amid national civil rights demonstrations, work crews quietly removed three remaining Confederate monuments from their pedestals across town.
The removals of the past Confederate heroes — Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall Jackson,” Gov. William “Extra Billy” Smith and physician Hunter Holmes McGuire — represented the culmination of efforts by Democratic lawmakers who sought to rid the Capitol grounds of what they saw as an embarrassing tribute to a painful past.
Though Friday’s effort was tame compared with Davis’s toppling in 2020, the symbolism was strong enough to attract camera crews from local television stations, which broadcast the images live.
Watching the scene unfold on his TV was one of the men responsible, former Virginia senator Adam Ebbin (D), who left office earlier this year.
In January, Ebbin introduced a bill to remove the statues. The measure was folded into an amendment to Virginia’s budget, which passed in June, after he left office.
Though the Confederate monuments date back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Ebbin pointed out that, in the past few decades, there have been several upgrades to the Capitol grounds.
The building itself underwent a historic restoration and underground expansion in the 2000s, and in subsequent years, monuments were added to honor the civil rights movement, fallen police officers and women.
“There’s a saying that you leave the campground better than you found it,” Ebbin said. “I think this leaves room for a conversation about what other Virginians we may want to include.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Virginia’s Department of General Services said crews removed the monuments in accordance with the budget item passed this year. The Jackson statue was unveiled in 1875, the Smith statue in 1906 and the McGuire statue in 1904, according to the statement.
The statues were gifted by the commonwealth to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, which will determine their relocation and future public display, the department said.
In a statement, the foundation said it would collaborate with state and local partners to “ensure the long-term preservation of these significant outdoor works of art.”
The foundation’s CEO, Keven Walker, said the foundation’s mission is driven by its belief that “our shared history can unite the people of our nation; that there is strength and inspiration for our own times to be found in the struggles of the past.”
“Preservation is more about the future than the past, and ensuring the preservation of the Capitol Square monuments is a part of that clear vision,” Walker said.
Richmond has drawn international attention for its efforts to confront its legacy of slavery and the Civil War.
About a month after the toppling of Davis’s statue, workers wielding power tools and large rolls of bubble wrap extricated a life-size statue of Robert E. Lee and busts of seven of his Confederate colleagues out of the Virginia Capitol.
Some icons have been reinterpreted in museums. Others have been hidden away in storage.
But for years after that initial flurry of activity, the three statues on the Capitol Grounds remained, a symbol of how deeply Confederate heritage was woven into Richmond’s landscape.
The issue flared up again in 2022, when then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) appointed a historian who had defended the statues to Virginia’s Board of Historic Resources, raising questions about whether he intended to reignite the fight over their place in Richmond.
That fight never materialized.
After 22 years in the legislature, as he was preparing to join the administration of Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D), Ebbin introduced his bill to remove the three holdouts.
The statues are of:
- Jackson, a former instructor at the Virginia Military Institute who became Lee’s top general but died after a friendly-fire accident during the war. While lionized for his military skills, Jackson was a lifelong defender of slavery.
- Smith, who served as governor both in the 1840s and again at the end of the Civil War. He was also a Confederate general who owned enslaved people.
- McGuire was a Confederate soldier and physician for the Southern army who amputated Jackson’s arm after that friendly-fire incident. McGuire, who died at the turn of the 20th century, supported slavery all his life.
On Friday, Ebbin responded to critics of his efforts who say that removing the statues amounts to “erasing history.”
“We’re not erasing history,” he said. “It’s just about who we choose to put on the front page.”
State Sen. Lamont Bagby (D-Henrico), head of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said the group had identified the statues on the Capitol grounds well before the 2020 protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd. He said that shifts in political power, namely the election of Youngkin and Republican control of the House, delayed the efforts for several years.
Bagby reflected on the Black Virginians who helped build the Capitol and many other buildings on the grounds and who had to walk past the statues.
“It’s a reminder of the hatred,” Bagby said. “I’m not saying that those statues don’t have a place, but that place is certainly not in such a prestigious place as the Virginia Capitol Square.”
Bagby said he and other Black state lawmakers continue to study ways to correct the racism of the past, such as instances when Black families were made to sell their homes to universities, and when some health care institutions displaced Black communities. He said they are also looking into funding for historically Black colleges and universities.
“It’s not all about tearing down monuments,” Bagby said. “It’s also about building up infrastructure to level the playing field.”
Gregory S. Schneider contributed to this report.
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