Charlottesville to cover Confederate
statues after chaotic meeting
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[August 23, 2017]
By Gina Cherelus
(Reuters) - City councilors in
Charlottesville, Virginia, voted unanimously on Tuesday to cover two
statues of Confederate war heroes in black fabric after ejecting
spectators from a chaotic council meeting as residents demanded answers
over how a recent white nationalist rally turned deadly.
Many activists and local residents crowded into the meeting, which began
late Monday and spilled into the wee hours of Tuesday. It was the first
council meeting since the Aug. 12 rally, when a car plowed into a group
of counter-protesters and killed a 32-year-old woman.
Many at the meeting shouted at the councilors and Mayor Mike Signer,
forcing them at one point to leave the chamber.
Videos posted on social media showed some in the crowd yelling "shame"
and "shut it down" and calling for Signer's resignation. A photo online
showed two people holding a sign that read "Blood On Your Hands" behind
the council seats.

When council members returned to the chamber after spectators were
removed, they voted to cover the statues of General Robert E. Lee and
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, said a city spokeswoman, Paige Rice.
"Council voted unanimously at their meeting to shroud the statues to
reflect the city's mourning," Rice said.
The planned removal of a statue of Lee in a downtown Charlottesville
park had galvanized white nationalists to rally there on Aug. 12 in
protest. Charlottesville is home to the University of Virginia.
The rally highlights a persistent debate in the U.S. South over the
display of the Confederate battle flag and other symbols of the rebel
side in the Civil War, which was fought over the issue of slavery.
In the wake of the Charlottesville rally, other cities have acted to
remove monuments to the Confederacy.
On Tuesday night, nearly 1,000 people rallied at the University of North
Carolina in Chapel Hill for the removal of "Silent Sam," a Confederate
soldier statue on the campus.
"Hey, hey! Ho, ho! These racist statues got to go!" chanted a crowd that
was kept away from the statue by two rings of barricades and police in
riot gear.
The protest was largely peaceful, but two people were arrested, said the
university's communications department. No information on the charges
levied, or details of the people arrested, were given.
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Police struggle with a protester during unrest at a demonstration
against a statue of a Confederate soldier nicknamed Silent Sam on
the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North
Carolina, U.S. August 22, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

There was no sign of professed white nationalists at the Chapel Hill
rally.
In Charlottesville, the council voted to cover the Lee and Jackson
statues with black fabric for now because of a pending lawsuit
challenging the city's authority to remove the statue of Lee.
During the council meeting, activists and residents questioned the
police response to the Aug. 12 unrest and criticized city leaders
for not heeding warnings in advance of the rally, Rice said. She
said that three people were removed from the room.
Charlottesville police did not immediately respond to a request for
comment. The New York Times reported that the three people ejected
from the meeting were issued citations for disorderly conduct.
Signer called last week for a special session of Virginia's
legislature to let localities decide the fate of Confederate
monuments such as the Lee statue.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe said that would be redundant
because the statue's fate is already subject to litigation, though
he said he hoped the court will rule in the city's favor.
The night before the Aug. 12 rally, scores of white supremacists
descended on Charlottesville and marched with tiki torches through
the campus of the University of Virginia in a display that critics
called reminiscent of a Ku Klux Klan rally.

In response to the Charlottesville violence, actor George Clooney
and his humanitarian lawyer wife, Amal Clooney, have donated $1
million to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a U.S. non-profit that
tracks extremist groups.
(Additional reporting by Corey Risinger in Chapel Hill, N.C., and
Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Leslie Adler and Himani
Sarkar)
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