Robert E. Lee Monument (Richmond, Virginia) facts for kids
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Robert E. Lee Monument
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U.S. National Historic Landmark District
Contributing Property |
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Statue atop the Robert E. Lee Monument
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 Location in Virginia
Location in the United States
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| Location | 1700 Monument Ave., jct. of Monument and Allen Aves., Richmond, Virginia |
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| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1890 |
| Architect | Mercie, Merius-Jean-Antonin; Pujol, Paul |
| NRHP reference No. | 06001213 |
Quick facts for kids Significant dates |
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| Added to NRHP | January 5, 2007 |
The Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia, was the first installation on Monument Avenue in 1890, where it remained the largest statue on the site for over a century. Since early July 2020, it survives as the last Confederate monument on the Avenue. Ongoing legal proceedings have prevented the Governor of Virginia from removing the memorial; while an October 2020 ruling found the state had no obligation to maintain the monument, immediate action was halted pending appeal.
Description and location
The bronze statue, sculpted by Antonin Mercié, depicts Confederate general Robert E. Lee atop a horse. The horse is not a representation of Robert E. Lee's Traveller, as Mercié felt that its scale wouldn't fit with the overall composition. Lee stands 14 feet (4.3 m) high atop his horse and the entire statue is 60 feet (18 m) tall standing on a stone base designed by Paul Pujol.
The state-controlled land around the statue serves as a traffic circle at the intersection of Monument Avenue and Allen Avenue (named after Otway Allen, the developer who donated the land to the association). The Lee Monument is a focal point for Richmond. (Most popular online maps depict the "Lee Circle" as the center of Richmond, although the United States Post Office uses the intersection of North and South Foushee Street where it intersects with East and West Main St as 0 axis Point of all address in the Richmond region, hence the true address center of Richmond. The Virginia Department of Transportation and the Virginia State Police use the state Capitol building as its center.)
History
Following the death of Robert E. Lee in 1870, several organizations formed with the goal of erecting a monument to Lee in Richmond. These included survivors of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, the Lee Monument Association led by Confederate general Jubal Early, and the Ladies' Lee Monument Association. These organizations were merged into the Lee Monument Commission in 1886, led by Lee's nephew and Virginia governor Fitzhugh Lee.
The cornerstone was placed on October 27, 1887. The statue was cast in several pieces separately and then the assembled statue was displayed in Paris before it was shipped to Richmond, where it arrived by rail on May 4. Newspaper accounts indicate that 10,000 people helped pull four wagons with the pieces of the monument. The completed statue was unveiled on May 29, 1890.
The site for the statue originally was offered in 1886. Over some opposition, the offer was accepted and later withdrawn when opponents complained that the $20,000 for the Lee Monument was inappropriate because the site was outside the city limit. Richmond City annexed the land in 1892, but bad times economically caused the Lee Monument to stand alone for several years in the middle of a tobacco field before development resumed in the early 1900s.
In 1992, the iron fence around the monument was removed, in part because drivers unfamiliar with traffic circles would run into the fence from time to time and force costly repairs. After the fences came down, the stone base became a popular sunbathing spot. In December 2006, the state completed an extensive cleaning and repair of the monument.
It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2007, the Virginia Landmarks Register since 2006, and is located in the Monument Avenue Historic District.
Protest actions
Following Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020, the traffic circle where the statue stands was unofficially updated with a sign that reads "Welcome to Beautiful Marcus-David Peters Circle, Liberated by the People MMXX" (after Marcus-David Peters, a Black man from Richmond who was shot and killed by the police in 2018).
In the wake of protests, the graffiti-covered monument increasingly became a venue to portray images of racial justice and empowerment: from ballerinas dancing at the base of the plinth to video projections of George Floyd, Malcolm X, Angela Davis (and others) onto the statue itself. In October 2020 the defaced monument was deemed among the most influential American protest artworks since World War II.
Images for kids
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The equestrian statue
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Marcus-David Peters Circle, August 2020
