Local News in Virginia

Local Efforts Underway To Remove Public Confederate Statues

By Leonard E. Colvin

Chief Reporter

New Journal and Guide

Two local public confederate monuments have become the target of efforts by Blacks calling for their removal. One is in the heart of Norfolk’s downtown banking district and one in Portsmouth’s most historic neighborhood.

On June 24, Portsmouth City Councilman Mark Whitaker stood with Mayor Kenneth Wright at Court and High Street in the city’s Olde Towne section and called for the bronze, granite and marble structure to be removed.

In Norfolk, leaders of the United Front for Justice, sent a letter last week to city officials calling for the removal of the towering confederate statue sitting in the heart of the city’s business and banking district at the corner of Commercial Place and Main Street.

Roy Perry-Bey, the Director of the UCJ’s Political, Civil and Human Rights Committee, said that since the city used funds to help re-erect the statue in the early 1970s, it owns it.

“Thus, it’s city property and I think the council should repeal the ordinance which calls for the funding and maintenance of the structure now,” said Perry-Bey. “This is an easy call. This Civil War monument is symbolic of slavery, racial discrimination and humiliation of

Black people. It should come down now.”