The statue of the officer was removed from a giant shelf where it has stood in Virginia’s capital for more than a century.
Several hundred spectators were present, some had black lives matter posters and several sang. The police were also in place, and the surrounding streets were blocked for traffic.
The statue, which is 6 meters high, will be cut into several parts and stored in a safe place before it is decided where its terminus will be.
It was Governor Ralph Northam who ordered the removal of the statue last summer, following the assassination of Georg Floyd in Minneapolis. Last week, the state Supreme Court gave the go-ahead to take down the statue.
It was part of the Monument Avenue landmark in what was the capital of the Southern States during the American Civil War, and the last of five statues of Southern leaders erected in the late 1800s.
For decades, several civil rights activists have fought to have the statues taken down, which they see as a painful reminder of racism in society and the southern states’ struggle to retain slavery.
Similar controversial monuments have been removed in the United States in the past, including in 2017 when the University of Texas removed a statue of Robert E. Lee and other Southern generals from the main campus. They were instead placed in a museum.
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