On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” Charlottesville, VA Mayor Michael Signer, who had previously voted to keep the city’s Robert E. Lee statue, stated that he now thinks Confederate monuments in downtown Charlottesville should be removed and that after the violence in the city, those monuments became “touchstones of terror.” He also stated he hasn’t spoken to the president yet.
Signer said, “I think everything changed last weekend. I think that was one of those moments in a nation’s history where everything turns. I’ve been likening it in my mind to Dylann Roof doing the terrorist attack in Charleston, or to Bull Connor turning the water hoses on the peaceful protesters in Birmingham, or Joseph Welch confronting McCarthy, and saying, at long last, ‘Have you no decency?” This was a moment when millions of people see things differently, and I would include myself. All of a sudden, these monuments, these equestrian statues of Civil War generals that were installed in the Jim Crow era here, they became touchstones of terror. They became these kind of twisted totems that these people clearly are drawn to. They’re trying to create a whole architecture of intimidation and terror and hatred around them. It was visited upon our town.”
He further stated that the memorial service for Heather Heyer, the woman killed in the car attack was a “turning point” that made it seem that “there was no option left.”
Signer also stated he hasn’t heard from the president yet and would be happy to talk to him.
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