The removal of Richmond, Virginia's last city-owned confederate monument began today after a judge denied a motion to delay its relocation.

Once the capital of the Confederacy, the city of Richmond began removing confederate monuments in 2020 following the death of George Floyd, and the subsequent national protests against racial injustice. The statue of General A.P. Hill, who was killed in the final days of the Civil War, was the last government-owned confederate monument in the city.

Though the monument was not just a statue depicting Hill, as the general's remains were also buried beneath. That, coupled with its location near a busy intersection, made the removal process more complicated than those of the other monuments throughout the city.

Four indirect descendants of Hill filed a motion to delay the statue's removal, claiming they should be allowed to decide its final location. While they agreed to having Hill's remains moved to a cemetery in Culpeper, they contested that the statue itself should be placed at Cedar Mountain Battlefield, near the cemetery.

The descendants were struck down last week by Richmond Circuit Court Judge David Eugene Cheek Sr., who instead ruled that the statue be donated to the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia.

Since 2020, The city of Richmond has spent nearly $2 million on removing state-owned confederate monuments. Cheek cited in his ruling that delaying the relocation of Hill's statue would create more costs, as well as unnecessary traffic hazards.

The majority of confederate monuments outside of cemeteries were created long after the Civil War, as a way to intimidate and disenfranchise Black communities during the Jim Crow Era, and even later during the Civil Rights Movement. Historians refer to this as the "Lost Cause" movement, which also encompasses the rewriting of confederate history to be motivated by states' rights rather than slavery.

As onlookers watched the statue come down earlier today, Mayor Levar Stoney said via Axios: "This is, I would say, the last day of the Lost Cause. I cannot say I’m emotional about this because I’ve seen so many of the other ones come down already. I’m elated that we started a project and … now Richmond can turn the next page — fully turn the next page.”