A judge has ruled in favor of the city of Richmond in a lawsuit concerning the A.P. Hill statue, potentially clearing the way for the removal of the 130-year-old monument, a spokesperson for Mayor Levar Stoney said.
In his ruling, Judge David Eugene Cheek Sr. said city officials and not Hill’s descendants get to decide where the statue goes next. While the city wants to give it to the Black History Museum, the descendants wanted it placed in another location.
The plaintiffs still have the opportunity to appeal, and the statue likely won’t be taken down immediately.
“We’re gratified by Judge Cheek’s ruling,” Stoney said in a statement. “This is the last stand for the Lost Cause in our city.”
Eleven Confederate statues in Richmond have been disassembled or pulled down by protesters since 2020. Richmond was the scene of protests in the spring and summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
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The removal of Hill’s statue has taken longer because it is also his grave site. Hill’s remains were placed there in 1891.
A Union soldier shot and killed him during the Union breakthrough at the Third Battle of Petersburg in April 1865. He was originally buried in Chesterfield County and later Hollywood Cemetery.
The city arranged for his remains to be reburied at Fairview Cemetery in Culpeper, near where Hill was born. The city contracted with a funeral home to transfer the remains and for Team Henry to remove the statue and plinth.
But Scott Braxton Puryear, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, argued the statue should be treated as a cemetery and that its ownership should be transferred to Hill’s descendants, who wanted to move it to Cedar Mountain Battlefield in Culpeper.
The descendants did not object to moving Hill’s remains to the Culpeper cemetery.
Though Cheek ruled in favor of the city, the plaintiffs have a few weeks to file an appeal, and the statue won’t be removed before that period expires.
Puryear said he doesn’t know yet if his clients will appeal.
Stoney said: “We look forward to a successful conclusion of the legal process, which will allow us to relocate Hill’s remains, remove and transfer the statue to the Black History Museum, and importantly, improve traffic safety at the intersection of Hermitage and Laburnum.”