The Richmond City Council voted Monday to ask the Virginia state legislature for permission to control the fate of several longstanding and controversial Confederate monuments.
Richmond lawmakers voted 6-2 to pass a resolution seeking the Virginia General Assembly’s authority to “determine the disposition of memorials and monuments located on public property owned by the City as it deems appropriate and to the extent otherwise permitted by law.”
Virginia law currently prevents local municipalities from dismantling or altering “monuments or memorials for any war or conflict, or for any engagement of such war or conflict,” effectively keeping cities like Richmond from legally removing those types of tributes without the state’s approval.
Richmond City Councilman Michael Jones, the resolution’s main sponsor, indicated its goal is to spark a conversation in the General Assembly, which fellow Democrats will control for the first time in more than two decades once the next legislative sessions starts this week.
“Discussing matters of race and inequities is not decisive. Nor is a Resolution for local control. We must be able and willing to discuss racist policies in effort to move our Country forward. It is never a bad thing,” Mr. Jones said on Twitter.
“Some issues are deeper than potholes, paving and personal feelings,” Mr. Jones tweeted.
Richmond served as capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War, and several statutes still standing in the city honor figures including former Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, among others.
Both the Davis and Jackson monuments in Richmond were discovered vandalized early Tuesday morning, several hours after the City Council’s vote. The pedestals of the monuments were spray-painted to read “This is racist” and “God is gay,” respectively.
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