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Gov. Ralph Northam wants school systems across Virginia to change the names of schools honoring Confederate leaders. In a July 6 letter to the heads of school boards in the state, Northam says the names and mascots have a "traumatizing impact on students, families, teachers and staff of all backgrounds." "When our public schools are named after individuals who advanced slavery and systemic racism, and we allow those names to remain on school property, we tacitly endorse their values as our own," Northam wrote. "This is no longer acceptable." The names have come under increased scrutiny during ongoing civil...

Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee on Monday released a draft of a funding bill that includes a provision to remove statues and busts of those who served the Confederacy or have "unambiguous records of racial intolerance" from the U.S. Capitol, setting up a potential fight over the issue as President Trump emphasizes preserving such tributes in at least some circumstances. The bill, which provides more than $4 billion to fund the legislative branch as part of the fiscal year that begins in October, is almost certain not to pass in its current form due to how Congress has run...

House Democrats are pushing forward with their efforts to remove artwork and monuments honoring Confederate figures from the Capitol. Nearly one month after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called on lawmakers to introduce legislation that would allow for Congress to remove the pieces, two bills have been proposed that appear headed toward floor votes. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) plans to bring a bill he originally introduced in March to the floor, The Hill reports. **SNIP** Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and House Rules Chair Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) have co-sponsored the legislation. Speaking to reporters last Wednesday,...

A predominantly Black group of heavily armed protesters marched through Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta on Saturday, calling for removal of the giant Confederate rock carving at the site that civil rights activists consider a monument to racism. Video footage of the Independence Day rally posted on social media showed scores of demonstrators dressed in black - many in paramilitary-style clothing and all wearing face scarves - quietly parading several abreast down a sidewalk at the park. Many of the protesters carried rifles, including military-type weapons, and some wore ammunition belts slung over their shoulders. Although African Americans appeared to...

Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial, a nine-story-high bas-relief sculpture carved into a sprawling rock face northeast of Atlanta, is perhaps the South's most audacious monument to its pro-slavery legacy still intact. Despite long-standing demands for the removal of what many consider a shrine to racism, the giant depiction of three Confederate heroes on horseback still towers ominously over the Georgia countryside, protected by state law. The monument - which reopens on Independence Day weekend after the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to close for weeks - has faced renewed calls for removal since the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a Black...

Work crews acting on the orders of the mayor took down a second statue on Thursday of a Confederate military figure in Richmond, the Virginia city that was the capital of the pro-slavery Civil War South. The statue of Matthew Fontaine Maury, a Confederate naval officer, was seen in televised footage being lifted off its stone base by a crane and placed on a flatbed truck.

A Virginia General Assembly law change, which goes into effect July 1, lays out the process for any locality to take down war memorials and monuments. That law also leaves a 60-day waiting period before anything can come down. Work crews wielding a giant crane, harnesses and power tools wrested an imposing statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson from its concrete pedestal along Richmond’s famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday, just hours after the mayor ordered the removal of all Confederate statues from city land. The Jackson statue is the latest of several dozen Confederate symbols to be removed from public land...

A university in southern Utah is considering dropping “Dixie” from its name amid nationwide protests against racial injustice that have brought a renewed focus on references to the Confederacy. Dixie State University, located about 300 miles south of Salt Lake City, has faced scrutiny in the past over its name but resisted changing. Now, protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody have renewed calls to change the name.

For several days last week, workers dismantled the 75-foot Confederate statue that has stood on the state Capitol grounds for 125 years. Monday, as crews removed the base to finish the job, they unearthed a time capsule of sorts underneath the rubble. The capsule was placed there when the monument was erected in 1894, said Michele Walker, public information officer for the N.C. Department of Cultural and Resources, in an interview with The News & Observer. Gov. Roy Cooper ordered the statue’s removal, along with the removal of two other Confederate monuments on Capitol grounds. The governor cited public safety...

Malcolm X was not pleased. The crowd was meager. Fannie Lou Hamer deserved better. She had stopped in Harlem to speak as his guest just months after her instrumental role in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's historic challenge to unseat Mississippi's all-White, all-male delegation to the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

Richmond police declared an unlawful assembly at the Lee Monument on Friday night and tear gas was deployed on protesters. Richmond police said the unlawful assembly was declared at 10:17 p.m. after paintballs were fired at the officers and one was struck.

It may be a rivalry on the field, but there’s a commonality to the Egg Bowl off of it. Especially when it comes to its state flag. In the midst of the tumult across the nation, the calls have been growing louder for the state of Mississippi to replace its stars-and-bars-emblazoned flag. The NCAA extended its ban on holding sponsored events in the state until the flag is changed. The SEC also announced that it would no longer hold conference sponsored championships or tournaments in the state. Conference USA joined the SEC Monday in taking the same stance.

There aren’t many Alabama businessmen whose comments make the pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post on the same weekend. And there are no others along a stretch of U.S. 431 outside Anniston on the way to Lake Wedowee, besides Bob Castello. The 68-year-old former traveling salesman is the owner of the Dixie General Store, one of the places where those who want to remember the Confederacy take their stand and buy its emblems. And not in Confederate dollars, either, although you can buy replicas of them there. NASCAR’s ban on the Confederate flag brought out merchants...

Richmond City Council is moving forward with a plan to rename the Robert E. Lee Memorial Bridge. On Monday, councilmembers passed a resolution to develop a process to rename the structure that spans the James River. There is no word yet on what the new name could be or when that change could take place.

On June 22, James Madison University’s president announced a recommendation for the Board of Visitors to change the names of Maury, Jackson, and Ashby Halls. The recommendation came after the university put out a survey asking for opinions on the change and after the Student Government Association passed a Bill of Opinion, among other measures.

Mississippi's largest religious group said Tuesday that state lawmakers have a moral obligation to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag because many people are “hurt and shamed” by the symbol. “While some may see the current flag as a celebration of heritage, a significant portion of our state sees it as a relic of racism and a symbol of hatred,” the Mississippi Baptist Convention said in a statement. “The racial overtones of this flag's appearance make this discussion a moral issue.”

An unlawful assembly was declared after police said demonstrators tried to topple the statue honoring Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart on Richmond's Monument Avenue Sunday night.

TALLADEGA, Alabama — It has been a little more than a week since NASCAR instituted a ban on Confederate flags at its facilities. That has led to at least one person publicly expressing their frustration before the now-postponed GEICO 500 at the Talladega Superspeedway. High above the track an hour prior to the scheduled start of the race was a plane with the Confederate flag and an accompanying message, “Defund NASCAR.” https://twitter.com/TMZ/status/1274802026270961665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1274802026270961665&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fsports%2F2020%2F06%2F21%2Fplane-with-defund-nascar-confederate-flag-banner-flies-above-talladega-superspeedway%2F Last week, the series made the announcement after the sanctioning body’s top series only black driver, Bubba Wallace, voiced his support for a possible ban. Reminders were posted...

Statues and monuments related to the Confederacy have been vandalized and toppled in recent days across the country, and now a memorial has been destroyed in a church cemetery in Silver Spring, Maryland. The memorial marked the graves of 17 Confederate soldiers, many unidentified. It was spray painted earlier in the week and then toppled over Wednesday night by vandals at Grace Episcopal Church.

The fifth statue in Richmond has been pulled down by protesters. The First Virginia Regiment Monument located on the corner of Park Avenue and Stuart Avenue has been pulled down.