The monuments are located on Monument Avenue, which is an area in Richmond, Virginia that includes statues memorializing Virginians who were members of the Confederate Army during the Civil War such as Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Thomas Jackson.
"They [monuments] were put up in the city at a time in the 1890s when the elite white society was determined to make sure people understood that they had fought for a society that was based on racism and it was based on the supremacy of the white race," Edwards stated on Monday. "We no longer reach for a society like that. If those monuments should come down, it’s time for them to come down."
The issue of taking the monuments down is a fresh debate in the Virginia city of Richmond, Edwards stated. She added that people in the community have expressed opposition to the monuments especially because they are in a public space.
"[The monuments], essentially to a culture, meant that one group of people, simply because of the color of their skin, were not going to be considered sufficiently human or sufficiently civilized to be entitled to the rights that everyone expects they should in the United States," Edwards stated.
The Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project is aiming to change the landscape of the city to also represent the black history of the community in the city, Edwards added.
