The Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery is set to be removed next week, despite opposition from a number of congressional Republicans.
According to a news statement from the national cemetery, safety netting has already been installed around the monument, which will be taken down by December 22. While it is being removed, the surrounding area, graves, and headstones will be safeguarded.
43 Republican lawmakers begged the Pentagon to postpone plans to demolish and remove the statue—also known as the Reconciliation Monument—from Arlington Cemetery, but their request was disregarded. The Republicans had argued in the letter that the memorial honors American unity following the Civil War rather than paying tribute to the Confederacy.
The memorial’s removal in 2022 was suggested by an independent panel in its final report to Congress on renaming military installations, other structures, and artifacts honoring the Confederacy.
The bronze monument, which stands on a 32-foot pedestal and was constructed in 1914, depicts a woman holding a laurel leaf wreath. At her feet is a biblical inscription that reads, “They have beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks.” The woman is carrying a laurel wreath, a plow stock, and a pruning hook.
Some contentious people are shown on the memorial, including a black lady known as “Mammy” who is seen carrying the infant of a white officer and a slave who is escorting his master to battle.
A representative for Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, told Fox News that Youngkin “disagrees with the Biden administration’s decision to remove” the monument and that he intends to relocate it to the New Market Battlefield State Historical Park in the Shenandoah Valley.
