Current:Home > ScamsJudge weighs whether to block removal of Confederate memorial at Arlington Cemetery -Ascend Wealth Education
Judge weighs whether to block removal of Confederate memorial at Arlington Cemetery
View
Date:2025-04-24 19:22:57
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A federal judge expressed strong misgivings Tuesday about extending a restraining order that is blocking Arlington National Cemetery from removing a century-old memorial there to Confederate soldiers.
At a hearing in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, U.S. District Judge Rossie Alston said he issued the temporary injunction Monday after receiving an urgent phone call from the memorial’s supporters saying that gravesites adjacent to the memorial were being desecrated and disturbed as contractors began work to remove the memorial.
He said he toured the site before Tuesday’s hearing and saw the site being treated respectfully.
“I saw no desecration of any graves,” Alston said. “The grass wasn’t even disturbed.”
While Alston gave strong indications he would lift the injunction, which expires Wednesday, he did not rule at the end of Tuesday’s hearing but said he would issue a written ruling as soon as he could. Cemetery officials have said they are required by law to complete the removal by the end of the year and that the contractors doing the work have only limited availability over the next week or so.
An independent commission recommended removal of the memorial last year in conjunction with a review of Army bases with Confederate names.
The statue, designed to represent the American South and unveiled in 1914, features a bronze woman, crowned with olive leaves, standing on a 32-foot (9.8-meter) pedestal. The woman holds a laurel wreath, plow stock and pruning hook, and a biblical inscription at her feet says: “They have beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks.”
Some of the figures also on the statue include a Black woman depicted as “Mammy” holding what is said to be the child of a white officer, and an enslaved man following his owner to war.
Defend Arlington, in conjunction with a group called Save Southern Heritage Florida, has filed multiple lawsuits trying to keep the memorial in place. The group contends that the memorial was built to promote reconciliation between the North and South and that removing the memorial erodes that reconciliation.
Tuesday’s hearing focused largely on legal issues, but Alston questioned the heritage group’s lawyers about the notion that the memorial promotes reconciliation.
He noted that the statue depicts, among other things, a “slave running after his ‘massa’ as he walks down the road. What is reconciling about that?” asked Alston, an African American who was appointed to the bench in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump.
Alston also chided the heritage group for filing its lawsuit Sunday in Virginia while failing to note that it lost a very similar lawsuit over the statue just one week earlier in federal court in Washington. The heritage groups’ lawyers contended that the legal issues were sufficiently distinct that it wasn’t absolutely necessary for Alston to know about their legal defeat in the District of Columbia.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who disagrees with the decision to remove the memorial, made arrangements for it to be moved to land owned by the Virginia Military Institute at New Market Battlefield State Historical Park in the Shenandoah Valley.
veryGood! (76927)
Related
- Justice Department, Louisville reach deal after probe prompted by Breonna Taylor killing
- The Rolling Stones show no signs of slowing down as they begin their latest tour with Texas show
- 2.9 magnitude earthquake rattles New Jersey
- Eric Church speaks out on his polarizing Stagecoach 2024 set: 'It felt good'
- Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Hi Hi!
- Pair of giant pandas set to travel from China to San Diego Zoo under conservation partnership
- This all-female village is changing women's lives with fresh starts across the nation
- Clayton MacRae : 2024 Crypto Evolution
- Taylor Swift makes surprise visit to Kansas City children’s hospital
- Mannequin falls onto track during IndyCar Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park
Ranking
- Sarah J. Maas books explained: How to read 'ACOTAR,' 'Throne of Glass' in order.
- Tractor-trailers with no one aboard? The future is near for self-driving trucks on US roads
- AIGM adding Artificial Intelligent into Crypto Trading Platform
- Churchill Downs president on steps taken to improve safety of horses, riders
- Whoopi Goldberg is delightfully vile as Miss Hannigan in ‘Annie’ stage return
- Kim Kardashian Debuts Icy Blonde Hair Transformation
- Rihanna Reveals How Her and A$AP Rocky’s Sons Bring New Purpose to Her Life
- This congresswoman was born and raised in Ukraine. She just voted against aid for her homeland
Recommendation
Appeals court scraps Nasdaq boardroom diversity rules in latest DEI setback
The Best Mother-in-Law Gifts That Will Keep You on Her Good Side & Make Her Love You Even More
2.9 magnitude earthquake rattles New Jersey
Kentucky Derby post positions announced for horses in the 2024 field
Meet the volunteers risking their lives to deliver Christmas gifts to children in Haiti
Clayton MacRae: Fed Rates Cut at least 3 more Times
Gypsy Rose Blanchard to Share So Much More Truth in Upcoming Memoir
MLB plans to make changes to polarizing uniforms no later than start of 2025 season