Crews prepare to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson from the campus of the Virginia Military Institute on Monday, Dec. 7, 2020, in Lexington, Va. (AP Photo/Sarah Rankin)LEXINGTON, Va. โ The Virginia Military Institute removed a prominent statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas โStonewallโ Jackson on Monday, a project initiated this fall after allegations of systemic racism roiled the public college.
But โVMI does not define itself by this statue and that is why this move is appropriate,โ he added.
VMI said the statue will be relocated to a nearby Civil War museum at a battlefield where dozens of VMI cadets were killed or wounded.
But he said it would not remove the statue of Jackson, who owned enslaved people, or rethink the names of buildings honoring Confederate leaders.
In 2015, VMI did away with requiring freshmen to salute the statue each time they passed it, Wyatt said.