The Charlottesville City Council has determined what will happen to a statue that was taken down in July, NBC 12 reported Tuesday.
A few minutes after midnight, four city councilors voted to donate the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.
It will be melted down and turned into art “that expresses the city’s values of inclusivity and racial justice,” the organization’s bid said.
The majority of public comments voiced during the meeting regarding the statue backed the “Swords Into Plowshares” proposal.
Councilors also expressed a desire to ship the statue of Gen. “Stonewall” Jackson to LAXART, which is an art center in Los Angeles, but wanted to learn if the museum would receive the one statue.
“Its bid had requested both Confederate monuments,” the NBC 12 article read.
The city of Charlottesville, Virginia, officially removed the statues of Lee and Jackson in July, Breitbart News reported at the time.
“The removals come as far-left radicals seek to destroy statuary across the country, with a much broader scope than just Confederates. The City of Charlottesville also decided to remove a statue depicting Lewis, Clarke, and Sacagawea on their exploration of the Louisiana Purchase,” the article read.
Video footage from July showed the Lee statue being removed:
The Swords Into Plowshares Charlottesville Indiegogo fundraising page said the “artistic transformation” will be informed through six-month community engagement process where citizens may take part in helping determine “how the social value of inclusion can be represented through art and public space.”
“We will then commission an artist of national significance to work with our community to design and create new bronze sculptural art that we will display publicly in Charlottesville by 2026,” the site read.
Meanwhile, there was a delay regarding the statue of Sacagawea and Lewis and Clark, the NBC report said, adding Councilor Lloyd Snook wanted to ship it to a private business campus in Texas that features artistic monuments.
“Here we’re giving the statue to the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center, we’re effectively giving them a $325,000 gift,” he commented. “Would we give them $325,000 in cash? I think the answer is clearly no.”
But Mayor Nikuyah Walker deemed the option “problematic.”
“There was something I read [in the Center’s proposal] that said ‘listen to Native people.’ I think you have to do more than listen,” the mayor asserted. “I think you have to learn from them and that they are not advising on a project like this, they are actually leading.”
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