(ProsperNews.net) – A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, which was removed from its plinth in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2021, has been melted down and labeled “toxic waste.” The process reportedly took place during a secretive ceremony, and the metal was melted in a 2,250-degree furnace.
University of Virginia religious studies professor Jalane Schmidt and Charlottesville’s Black History Museum executive director Andrea Douglas led the project to turn the metal into new pieces of art, and they said the procedure was secret so political objections could be avoided. Jalane Schmidt compared the melting to euthanizing a rabid dog and described the liquid metal as “white supremacist toxic waste.”
Plans to remove the statue in 2017 caused uproar and prompted a notorious “Unite the Right” rally in August that year. A 32-year-old woman was hit by a car and died during riots that followed the demonstration. The fallout paved the way for the statue’s removal, along with that of General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Officials had already dismantled several Confederate statues the previous year when Black Lives Matter riots occurred across the US.
Robert E. Lee was one of the most senior Confederate leaders of the US Civil War. Born in Virginia in 1807, he joined the National Military Academy in 1825 and led a distinguished career – particularly during the US-Mexico war that began in 1847. When his home state joined the Confederacy in 1861, Lee was commissioned as a Brigadier General and rose to the rank of General the same year.
The military leader would later become an educator, spending five years as President of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia. History books describe Mr. Lee as having accepted the Civil War defeat, and he never criticized Abraham Lincoln or the US government during his college presidency. Under his leadership, the university grew and reflected his passions for science and technology.
He died from a stroke on October 12, 1870.
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