Richmond removes Robert E. Lee statue and cut it to pieces.

As the general himself would have wanted.

TEXT:

RICHMOND, Va. — A crowd erupted in cheers and song Wednesday as work crews hoisted an enormous statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee off the giant pedestal where it had towered over Virginia’s capital city for more than a century.

One of America’s largest monuments to the Confederacy, the equestrian statue was lifted down to the ground just before 9 a.m., after a construction worker who strapped harnesses around Lee and his horse lifted his arms in the air and counted down, “Three, two, one!” to jubilant shouts from a crowd of hundreds. A work crew then began cutting it into pieces.

“This was a long time coming, part of the healing process so Virginia can move forward and be a welcoming state with inclusiveness and diversity,” said Gov. Ralph Northam, who was there to witness the event. The Democrat said it represents “more than 400 years of history that we should not be proud of,” and congratulated Virginians for supporting its removal

Sharon Jennings, an African American born and raised in Richmond, said the statue had to go, but she still had mixed feelings seeing it come down.

“It’s a good day, and it’s a sad day at the same time,” Jennings, 58, said. “It doesn’t matter what color you are, if you really like history, and you understand what this street has been your whole life and you’ve grown up this way, you’re thinking, ‘Oh, my God.’ But when you get older you understand that it does need to come down.”

Some chanted “Whose streets? Our streets!” and sang, “Hey hey hey, goodbye.” There was a brief commotion when a man with a Black Lives Matter flag ran into the fenced-off work area. He was quickly detained by police and escorted out, where he began arguing with others in the crowd.

Northam ordered the statue taken down last summer, citing the pain felt across the country over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck. But his plans were tied up in litigation until the Supreme Court of Virginia cleared the way last week.

The 21-foot (6-meter) high bronze sculpture sat atop a granite pedestal nearly twice that tall, towering above Monument Avenue since 1890 in this former capital of the Confederacy.

The state brought in a deconstruction crew surrounded by a heavy police presence to strap the statue to a crane. State, capitol and city police officers closed streets for blocks around the state-owned traffic circle in Richmond, using heavy equipment and crowd-control barriers to keep crowds away. The Federal Aviation Administration granted the state’s request to ban drone flights during the event, which will be livestreamed through the governor’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.

“This is a historic moment for the city of Richmond. The city, the community at large is saying that we’re not going to stand for these symbols of hate in our city anymore,” said Rachel Smucker, 28, a Richmond resident who was at the viewing site early Wednesday with her sister.

Smucker, who is white, said she moved to Richmond around three years ago. It was her first time living in the South, and she found Monument Avenue “jarring.

“I’ve always found it to be offensive, as a symbol of protecting slavery and the racism that people of color still face today,” Smucker said.

The one-of-a-kind piece, valued for its artistic quality, stood among four other massive Confederate statues on the avenue, but the city removed the others last summer.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/towering-robert-e-lee-statue-richmond-virginia-come-down-n1278669