Foundry staff at an undisclosed location start the lengthy means of disassembling and melting down the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The statue was a focus of lethal riots in Charlottesville, Va. in 2017.

Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares

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Foundry staff at an undisclosed location start the lengthy means of disassembling and melting down the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The statue was a focus of lethal riots in Charlottesville, Va. in 2017.

Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares

Communities throughout the American South have removed Confederate monuments from public areas in recent times. Some have gone to museums, others are locked away in storage.

But one notably controversial statue from Charlottesville, Va. is on a unique journey — to be remodeled into one thing new.

The huge bronze sculpture of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, in uniform, astride his horse Traveller, stood in a downtown Charlottesville park for almost a century. It was on the heart of a lethal white nationalist rally in 2017, when Neo-Nazis and white supremacists tried to cease town’s plans to take away the statue.

It came down to cheers in July of 2021.

“Today the statue comes down and we are one small step closer to a more perfect union,” mentioned then-mayor Nikuyah Walker.

A home made signal that claims Heather Heyer Park rests on the base of the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in a downtown Charlottesville, Va. park on August 18, 2017. Heyer was killed by a neo-Nazi throughout a white nationalist rally.

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A home made signal that claims Heather Heyer Park rests on the base of the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in a downtown Charlottesville, Va. park on August 18, 2017. Heyer was killed by a neo-Nazi throughout a white nationalist rally.

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A flatbed truck carries a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the Market Street Park July 10, 2021 in Charlottesville, Va. Initial plans to take away the statue sparked the notorious “Unite the Right” rally the place Heather Heyer was killed, two state troopers died, and dozens of individuals had been injured.

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A flatbed truck carries a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the Market Street Park July 10, 2021 in Charlottesville, Va. Initial plans to take away the statue sparked the notorious “Unite the Right” rally the place Heather Heyer was killed, two state troopers died, and dozens of individuals had been injured.

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Charlottesville prevailed in a protracted authorized battle with the Sons of Confederate Veterans and different teams, and donated the Lee statue to a coalition that proposed to soften it down and create a extra inclusive public artwork set up.

“We want to transform something that has been toxic in the Charlottesville community,” says Jalane Schmidt, a non secular research professor on the University of Virginia and one the venture’s organizers. “We want to transform it into a piece of art that the community can be can be proud of, and gather around and not feel excluded or intimidated.”

“People are willing to die for symbols,” Schmidt says. “And as we saw in Charlottesville, they’re willing to kill for them too.”

Lawsuits to cease the venture failed, and final weekend organizers moved ahead, with nice secrecy, to disassemble and soften down the Lee monument.

The work is being accomplished at an out-of-state foundry. NPR agreed to not reveal its location or the identification of the employees as a result of they concern repercussions.

Workers at a foundry warmth items of the Robert E. Lee statue. It is being melted down and poured into ingots which can later be used to create a brand new artwork exhibition in Charlottesville, Va.

Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares

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Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares

Workers at a foundry warmth items of the Robert E. Lee statue. It is being melted down and poured into ingots which can later be used to create a brand new artwork exhibition in Charlottesville, Va.

Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares

Workers hammer and slice off elements of the Robert E. Lee statue that stood in Charlottesville, Va. for many years. The metropolis took it down in 2021 and donated the monument to a bunch working to remodel it into a brand new piece of public artwork.

Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares

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Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares

Workers hammer and slice off elements of the Robert E. Lee statue that stood in Charlottesville, Va. for many years. The metropolis took it down in 2021 and donated the monument to a bunch working to remodel it into a brand new piece of public artwork.

Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares

They use a torch to attain the top of the statue, within the sample of a demise masks. Lee’s face falls to ground with a loud clank.

The symbolism is poignant for Andrea Douglas, government director of the Jefferson School African American Cultural Center in Charlottesville, which is main the venture.

“The act of myth-making that has occurred around Robert E. Lee, removing his face is emblematic of the kind of removal of that kind of myth,” Douglas says.

The venture known as Swords into Plowshares, taken from a Bible verse within the e book of Isaiah.

The saber from Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s statue is plunged right into a crucible to be melted down.

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The saber from Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s statue is plunged right into a crucible to be melted down.

Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares

A furnace is ignited and heats to greater than 2,000 levels Fahrenheit in a aspect yard of the foundry. Workers feed items of the verdigris statue, together with General Lee’s saber, into a big vessel inside referred to as a crucible.

“We are turning swords into something else,” says Douglas. “That saber is the object of violence and it was the object of power, the object of conquest. I think that is an important symbol to really sort of dig into”

Just after dusk, foundry staff take away the crucible which glows a vibrant red-orange, and pour the steaming molten bronze into molds.

Jalane Schmidt says essentially the most thrilling half for her is seeing the brand new ingots created.

“Because that’s about going forward,” she says watching the employees flip out the blocks of steel as if turning out a loaf of bread.

The almost 10,000 pound Robert E. Lee Confederate statue, damaged into items, is turned to molten bronze and poured into ingot molds.

Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares

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The almost 10,000 pound Robert E. Lee Confederate statue, damaged into items, is turned to molten bronze and poured into ingot molds.

Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares

For safety causes, few folks had been invited to observe. Among them is Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, who feels the load of what she’s witnessing.

“Oh, my gosh, as like a proud Black Appalachian who was born and raised in the South, I know this to be more than just a symbolic moment.”

Henderson is co-executive director of the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee which has lengthy been an incubator for labor and civil rights activists. She sees alternative on this second.

“I’m most excited about what it looks like to repair — what reparations look like for folks in Charlottesville, what it looks like to tell this new story,” Henderson says. “I think this is a joyful occasion in a really dire strait of political nastiness that we’ve been surviving.”

For the Rev. Isaac Collins, a Methodist minister, the lethal white nationalist violence in Charlottesville in 2017 was a turning level for the nation, and personally.

White nationalists, neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and members of the “alt-right” assault one another as a counter protester (R) intervenes through the melee on the Unite the Right rally August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Va.

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White nationalists, neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and members of the “alt-right” assault one another as a counter protester (R) intervenes through the melee on the Unite the Right rally August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Va.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“As a Christian, as a white person in this country, it was a moment that made me reconsider everything about how I understood our country, how I understood my family, how I understood myself and my identity.”

Collins, who pastored a church in Charlottesville on the time, says it’s surreal to see the focus of that episode disassembled.

“I was thinking Humpty Dumpty couldn’t be put back together again,” says Collins. “We still have a lot of work to do, but this statue that has cost us so much, so much violence, so much hurt, so much bloodshed – it’s gone. And it’s never going to be put back together the way it was.”

The melting down of the Lee statue will take weeks. It weighed almost 10,000 kilos. Organizers say the subsequent step will probably be selecting an artist who will craft the bronze ingots into a brand new artwork kind to be displayed in Charlottesville.

The venture to remodel the previous statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee known as Swords into Plowshares, taken from a Bible verse within the e book of Isaiah.

Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares

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Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares

The venture to remodel the previous statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee known as Swords into Plowshares, taken from a Bible verse within the e book of Isaiah.

Eze Amos/For Swords into Plowshares