Charlottesville City Council Votes to Remove Statue of 'Stonewall' Jackson

The Charlottesville, Virginia City Council has voted to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson from a park, NBC News reported.

The vote also would quicken the relocation of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which was the focus of a white nationalist demonstration last month that led to the death of Heather Heyer after a car plowed into a group of anti-protesters.

The vote called for the removal of the Jackson statue "pending court decisions and/or changes in the Virginia Code," which includes a provision that forbids removing certain war memorials.

WUSA9 reported that the city council was packed and emotions ran high during the meeting over the highly charged issue.

After the attack killing Heyer, both the Jackson and Lee statues were covered in a black tarp as a symbol of mourning.

Councilman Bob Fenwick told WVIR television following the city council meeting that the statues of the confederate generals should be in a museum.

"If people stop and think, we have no statues, that I know of, to George Washington in Charlottesville, and yet none of us have forgotten his history," Fenwick pointed out. "So this argument that we have to keep it to preserve history, to me, is irrelevant."

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