His statue, removed from a public park in Charlottesville in July 2021, was donated that December, by the City Council, to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center. The latter plans to “transform a national symbol of white supremacy into a new work of art that will reflect racial justice and inclusion.” Be careful for what you wish. Some decades hence, statues of carnivores such as King and Clinton may fall to the wrath of the herbivores.
In the meantime, Robert E. Lee is one of so many swept from the complexity of life into the clarity of caricature. That makes any prospective biographer brave as well as vulnerable, liable to provoke the ire of others searching for flaws.
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