It was only two weeks ago that the fourth of the NAACP Loudoun Black Lives Matter marches took place.* Galvanized a month ago in response to the murder of George Floyd and the call for justice against police brutality, iterations of #BlackLivesMatter hashtags, slogans, and activist chants, were focused into community action and voter mobilization.
From the very beginning, Phyllis Randall, the first Black woman to be chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, put the crowds that gathered on notice in her speeches reminding them:
This isn’t a moment it’s a movement.
If you came just to hold signs and shout “Black Lives Matter”, go home.
Randall personally has been fighting for the removal of the Confederate statue outside the Leesburg Courthouse for decades. She cautioned eager activists not to take matters into their own hands, but instead wanted to let the process play out, “to defeat them with the law.”
Virginian got the go-ahead from Governor Northam for localities to decide what to do with Confederate monuments and statues beginning July 1. In fact, the Mayor of Richmond moved quickly to have Stonewall Jackson and two other monuments removed.
The NAACP Black Lives Rallies featured a call to action on July 7th to formally ask for the removal of the Leesburg Confederate statute, but the United Daughters of the Confederacy, who gave the statue to Leesburg, requested the week prior for the statue to be returned.
It is an understatement to say that the tidal shift in Confederate statues in Virginia has changed. Despite Confederate rationalizations for a different view of history, this sea-change is a step forward, or as Randall said at the July 7th public hearing, “The arc of the moral universe in Loudoun county has bent” toward justice.
See the measure pass unanimously 9-0. The United Daughters of the Confederacy have until September 7 to make arrangements for its removal and return.
*My apologies for writing this much later. The spot got upstaged by coverage of protesters at Trump’s golf course in Sterling, VA June 28, July 3, and July 5.