Charlottesville, VA (WVIR) – The The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center By February, the Confederate general of Charlottesville plans to melt down the statue of Robert E. Lee and turn it into a work of public art.
“It feels really, really iconic and historic,” said Executive Director Dr. Andrea Douglas. “We don’t want to take our trauma and pass it on to another community. The idea is that you take something that has a lot of connotations that are associated with white supremacy, and then it needs to go to another community. Where they have to deal with those things. It seems immoral to us.”
Douglas says the entire public art project, Swords in Plowshares, will cost about $1.1 million.
“We have already raised $590,000 in gifts from Virginia Humanities Open Source, one of the largest foundations in the country. They have already participated in commemorative processes,” Douglass said.
Jalen Schmidt is director of the UVA Democracy Initiatives Memory Project, a co-sponsor of the art project.
“The law will still be here. Will be here with us. Whatever is made of these repurposed materials will be here for us,” Schmidt said.
This work of art will tell the full story of how the statue came to be, says Schmidt.
Click here if you are interested in donating swords to the Plowshares project.
related: Charlottesville gives organization a plan to replace, melt Lee’s statue
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