General Robert E. Lee statue removal date set for September 8, Virginia governor says

A towering statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, is set to come down on Wednesday, more than 130 years after it was built as a tribute to a Civil War general who is now widely seen as a symbol of racial injustice, state officials said Monday.

"Virginia's largest monument to the Confederate insurrection will come down this week," Governor Ralph Northam said in news release on Monday. "This is an important step in showing who we are and what we value as a commonwealth." The imposing, 21-foot tall bronze likeness of Lee on a horse sits atop a granite pedestal nearly twice that high in the grassy center of a traffic circle on Richmond's famed Monument Avenue.