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<\/p>\nVirginia’s highest court cleared the way Thursday for two Confederate\u00a0statues in Charlottesville to be removed, one of which was at the center of a deadly 2017 rally attended by\u00a0hundreds of neo-Nazis and white supremacists.<\/p>\n
The state Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s ruling in favor of a group of residents who sued to stop the city from taking down statues of Confederate generals\u00a0Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This decision is the latest in a series of similar moves nationwide to remove symbols of white supremacy. Last year, 168\u00a0such symbols \u2013 including placards, building dedications and more than 90\u00a0Confederate monuments \u2014 were renamed or removed, according to a year-end update to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Whose Heritage?” report, which tracks Confederate symbols across the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Charlottesville has particularly been under a national spotlight since 2017 after a “Unite the Right” rally was held in the city that August. White nationalist\u00a0organizers of the event said they rallied to protect the statue of Lee that has now been authorized to be removed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' during the 'Unite the Right' rally Aug. 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Va. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n Organizers were met with a large group of counterprotesters,<\/strong>and the clash left three dead and dozens injured.<\/strong>One woman was killed at the event after a neo-Nazi rammed his car into counterprotesters.\u00a0Then-President Donald Trump came under fire for saying there were “fine” people on “both sides” of the protest.<\/p>\n While emblems of the Confederacy are common in the South, and Virginia\u00a0houses the most Confederate symbols.<\/p>\n In February, state lawmakers passed a bill to remove a statue of former Virginia governor and U.S. Sen.\u00a0Harry F. Byrd from the state Capitol grounds. He\u00a0was considered the architect of the state\u2019s \u201cmassive resistance\u201d policy to public school integration.<\/p>\n Activists have long called for the removal of such symbols,\u00a0but the movement grew stronger fafter George Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis last year. Now, Confederate symbols are more\u00a0closely associated with white supremacy, but many still defend the\u00a0statues and memorials as Southern heritage.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nearly 2,100 emblems and dedications to the Confederacy remain, which include more than 700 statues, according\u00a0to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s updated report published in February.<\/p>\n