After causing serious injury to one man and being the impetus for criminal charges against several prominent Black community leaders, Portsmouth's Confederate monument began to come down Wednesday morning.
The removal started without widespread notice (it's not required). City Manager Lydia Pettis Patton did not respond to phone calls today about the removal.
Other cities in Hampton Roads have discussed what to do with their own Confederate monuments. A new law that went into effect in July gives localities the power to decide what to do with them.
Norfolk removed theirs in June, before the law went into effect, citing public safety concerns.
In a rare unanimous agreement in July, Portsmouth City Council approved a resolution that gave Pettis Patton the authority to remove the statue.
She said at the time the statue would go into an unidentified storage location.
Japharii Jones, an organizer with the local Black Lives Matter organization, livestreamed part of the removal. He showed the monument, covered in yellow paint and spray painted phrases like "Black Lives Matter" and " Say their names."
"The Confederates stood for the oppression of Black people," he said as he walked around the construction zone. "They fired upon U.S. troops to keep their slaves. And the stain is finally being removed."
In Portsmouth, recent arguments about the monument started as early as 2015.
The monument was erected in the 1876 for Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. It was previously the site of a whipping post for enslaved people.
