Virginia lawmakers vote to remove statue of segregationist
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A panel of Virginia legislators advanced a bill Friday to remove a statue of Harry F. Byrd Sr., a staunch segregationist, from the state Capitol grounds.
The decision to advance the bill comes amid a yearslong effort in history-rich Virginia to rethink who is honored in the state's public spaces. Byrd, a Democrat, served as governor and U.S. senator. He ran the state's most powerful political machine for decades until his death in 1966 and was considered the architect of the state’s racist “massive resistance” policy to public school integration.
“It is my deep belief that monuments to segregation, massive resistance, and the subjugation of one race below another, like this statue, serve only as a reminder to the overt and institutional racism has and continues to plague our Commonwealth,” the bill's sponsor, Del. Jay Jones, said when introducing the measure.
The bill advanced from the House committee on a party-line vote of 13-5, with all Republicans voting against it. It still must pass both chambers of the General Assembly, but with Democrats controlling the statehouse and Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam backing the measure, it is almost certain to pass.
Northam highlighted the bill in an address to lawmakers earlier this month, saying the state should no longer celebrate a man who fought integration.
In the 1950s, Byrd’s political machine implemented a series of official state policies that opposed court-ordered public school integration and even closed some public schools rather than desegregate them.
“If we can organize the Southern states for massive resistance to this (court) order, I think that in time the rest of the country will realize that integration is not going to be accepted in the South,” Byrd once told fellow Democrats, The Associated Press has previously...