• @NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Not just any Lee statue, the one from Charlottesville famous for the Unite the Right Nazi rally that culminated in Heather Heyer getting murdered.

    I ended up in Charlottesville for a wedding a few years back and unintentionally parked right across the street from the statue. It was covered up with plastic; sent a shiver down my spine when I realized what it was. I’m glad they’re melting that shit down to turn a hate symbol into something beautiful. RIP Heather, you stood up for real American values.

    • @neutron@thelemmy.club
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      332 years ago

      Charlottesville was the wake up call for many. Never I expected nazis openly marching on US soil, chanting slogans straight from WW2… nearly a century after WW2.

      It also must suck for the locals to have their town’s name being forever associated to those scums.

    • deweydecibel
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      112 years ago

      Yeah, generally, I prefer stuff like this to get preserved for historical value, just out of public view.

      But many of these things are rallying points for hate right now, and the value of actually destroying that in the present outweighs the value to any historian or student of history in the future.

      This one in particular. History won’t miss it. Burn the fucker.

      • @TheMorningStar@lemmy.world
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        112 years ago

        The vast majority of these statutes, including this one, were erected decades after the Civil War and have no historical value beyond being physical representations of Jim Crow. The guy that commissioned it purchased land and oversaw the creation of a whites only park on the site where it was erected. They were rallying points of hate when they went up and they still are.