Confederate Robert E Lee’s racist legacy fuels US renaming push

In the wake of racial justice protests, monuments and institutions honouring Lee are being reimagined or repurposed.

As the United States continues to grapple over race relations and symbols that venerate Confederates who fought to perpetuate slavery in the 1860s, communities across the country are considering new approaches to memorialising one of the rebellion’s most famous leaders: General Robert E Lee. To this day, scores of buildings, roads, monuments and institutions bear Lee’s name. Thousands of children are educated at schools named after Lee; “Robert E Lee Day” is still celebrated every January in a handful of states, and the late general’s likeness appears on monuments and memorials in dozens of cities. Lee, a decorated military officer from Virginia who fought for the US before the Civil War and married into the family of George Washington, was responsible for some of the Confederacy’s most consequential victories in its fight to protect slavery.