WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (WAVY) — Williamsburg City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to remove the city’s Confederate memorial from a public park.
It came after a public hearing with more than 30 speakers, most in favor of moving the monument.
The removal of the 20-foot-tall monument in Bicentennial Park comes under conditions agreed between the United Daughters of the Confederacy, who originally contributed to the monument’s funding in 1908, will allow the organization more than a year to find a new home for the monument.
If the Daughters do not do so before Jan. 31, 2021, the city can then consider the monument “abandoned” and dispose of it.
Confederate monuments continue to come down across the country in the wake of recent protests over racial inequity and police brutality, including in Richmond and Norfolk.