Thread by @GovernorVA

Today, we’re here to be honest about our past and talk about our future.

I strongly believe that we have to confront where we’ve been in order to shape where we’re going.

In Virginia, for more than 400 years, we have set high ideals about freedom and equality—but we have fallen short of them.

Some of America’s most hopeful and forward-looking moments happened in this Commonwealth and in this capital city.

When Americans first dreamed of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—they dreamed it here in this Commonwealth.

Through 400 years of American history, starting with the enslavement of Africans, through the Civil War, through Jim Crow, and Massive Resistance, and mass incarceration, black oppression has always existed in this country, just in different forms.

The legacy of racism continues not just in isolated incidents like we saw in Minneapolis a few days ago.

And the legacy of racism continues as part of a system that touches every person and every aspect of our lives, whether we know it or not.

It’s time to acknowledge the reality of institutional racism, even if you can’t see it. Public policies have kept this reality in place for a long time. That’s why we’ve been working to reform criminal justice laws, expand health care access, make it easier to vote, and more.

But symbols matter too, and Virginia has never been willing to deal with symbols––until now.

Today, Virginia is home to more Confederate commemorations than any other state. That’s true because generations ago, Virginia made the decision not to celebrate unity, but to honor the cause of division.

The statue of Robert E. Lee is the most prominent. Lee himself didn’t want a monument, but Virginia built one any way.

Instead of choosing to heal the wounds of the American civil war, they chose to keep them on display.

And as the statues went up, so did lots of new laws. The people who wrote these laws knew what they were doing. They wrote other new laws to say that once a statue goes up, it can never come down.

Those laws ruled for more than a century.

But voting matters, elections matter, and laws can be changed.

And this year, we changed them. This year, I proposed legislation to let cities and counties decide what to do with monuments in their communities—take them down, move them somewhere else, or add additional context.

But the Lee statue is unique, both in size and in legal status. The state owns it, unlike most other statues––that was part of the plan to keep it up forever. It sits on a 100-foot circle of land, a state-owned island, surrounded by the City of Richmond.

And when it’s the biggest thing around, it sends a clear message: This is what we value the most. But that’s just not true anymore.

In Virginia, we no longer preach a false version of history.

In 2020, we can no longer honor a system that was based on the buying and selling of enslaved people.

Yes, that statue has been there for a long time. But it was wrong then, and it is wrong now.

So we’re taking it down.

I believe in a Virginia that studies its past in an honest way. I believe that when we learn more, we can do more.

And I believe that when we learn more—when we take that honest look at our past—we must do more than just talk about the future.

We must take action.

So I am directing @DGSvirginia to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee. It will go into storage, and we will work with the community to determine its future.

I believe in a Virginia that studies its past in an honest way.

I believe in a Virginia that learns lessons from the past. And we all know our country needs that example right now.

America is once again looking to Virginia to lead.

And make no mistake—removing a symbol is important, but it’s only a step.

We still need change in this country. We need healing most of all.

But symbols matter.

We all know it’s time. And history will prove that.