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The University of Virginia announced Friday it would remove a statue that depicts subjection of Native American people and rename or remove several other campus landmarks or buildings named after slaveholders.
The university’s Board of Visitors said it would work with Indigenous groups to find an off-campus location where it could relocate the controversial statue honoring George Rogers Clark, a military leader during the American Revolution credited with helping claim the Old Northwest Territory for the U.S. and noted for his military incursions against Native American tribes and villages. The statue calls Clark “Conqueror of the Northwest” and “features Indian people braced for submission,” according to a UVA Today article.
The university also said it would rename its education school, dropping the name of J. L. M. Curry, a Confederate leader and slaveholder who advocated for free public education but opposed integrated schools, and remove the name of Henry Malcolm Withers, another Confederate leader and slaveholder, from Withers-Brown Hall at UVA School of Law. The university plans to rededicate or -- if rededication is not possible -- remove the Hume Memorial Wall, a Confederate memorial honoring Confederate soldier Frank Hume.
UVA's Board of Visitors also voted to “contextualize” the statue of Thomas Jefferson -- primary author of the Declaration of Independence, third president of the U.S. and UVA’s founder -- located on the north side of the university’s rotunda. UVA said in a press release that the resolution approved by the Board of Visitors “acknowledged Jefferson’s contributions to the University and the nation, but also pointed out that he owned slaves and used slave labor at UVA, in direct contradiction to the ideals of liberty and equality he professed.”
