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It's racist. Get rid of it. Bust it up and use it to pave
roads.

On Richmond's Monument Avenue, the collection of towering
statues honoring Confederate veterans was interrupted by one
noticeably different: a monument to Black tennis legend and
civil rights activist Arthur Ashe.

The Ashe statue seemed safe from defacement during recent
protests over racism and police brutality, when protesters
covered Confederate statues with graffiti and pulled down a
statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate
States during the Civil War.

But after someone painted “White Lives Matter” on Ashe's statue,
city officials considered a request from Ashe’s family to
temporarily remove the statue to protect it. Ashe's nephew said
Friday that the statue isn’t going anywhere.

“It's not going to be taken down,” David Harris Jr. said.

Harris said he contacted Mayor Levar Stoney's office last month
about taking down the statue until the civil unrest in Richmond
calmed down.

Harris said the request was a “contingency plan” only during the
height of the protests over the May 25 police killing of George
Floyd in Minneapolis, when there were almost nightly clashes
between police and protesters, and the Ashe family worried that
the statue would be damaged or someone would try to topple it.

“We were just considering it at the height of the protesting so
that if any credible threats came through Mayor Stoney had the
leeway to do it without having any pushback from us if he felt
the need to take it down," Harris said.

Stoney’s spokesman, Jim Nolan, said Friday that the mayor is
“going to listen to the family” and not remove the statue.

On July 1, Stoney ordered the immediate removal of all city-
owned Confederate statues in Richmond, a onetime capital of the
Confederacy. Stoney invoked his emergency powers, citing the
ongoing civil unrest and concerns that protesters would get hurt
if they tried to pull down the enormous statues themselves.

The only Confederate statue that remains on Monument Avenue is a
memorial to Gen. Robert E. Lee located on state property. Gov.
Ralph Northam ordered that statue's removal last month, but it
has been at least temporarily blocked by a lawsuit.

Harris said he believes his uncle's statue “stands for
everything the people are working for right now.”

Ashe, a Richmond native, was denied access to tennis courts as a
child because of segregation. He went on to become the first
Black player selected to the U.S. Davis Cup team and was the
only Black man to ever win the singles title at the U.S. Open,
Wimbledon and the Australian Open. He was also well-known for
his work to promote education and civil rights, to oppose
apartheid in South Africa and to raise awareness about AIDS, the
disease that eventually killed him in 1993.

Ashe's statue was erected in 1996, but only after rancorous
debate.

“If we're going to put up a statue of somebody, let's put up a
statue of somebody that stands for equality, that stands for
education, all the things that my uncle held true,” Harris said.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/statue-to-tennis-star-arthur-ashe- to-stay-put-in-richmond
 

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