Richmond's new take on Robert E. Lee Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Jun 5 2020

Location: 

Richmond, VA

Over the winter break, I was actually able to see the recently re-decorated Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia. After the height of the Black Lives Matter Protests over the past summer, it couldn’t be torn down, but it was fully wrapped with protest art. All phrases and slogans (such as Black Trans Lives Matter, ACAB, Etc.) were in full display over the statue of the infamous Confederate General.

External sources: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/t-magazine/most-influential-protest-art.html
Posted by nahlahabdur on Feb 17 2021

Staff rating: 

0

Effectiveness

How does this project help?

Activates (people)Energizes and organizes people into action. Can include emotion work
Amplifies (issue or campaign)Brings public and political attention to an issue or campaign.  Can include prefigurative action, making the invisible visible.
Strengthens (community)Strengthens, builds and celebrates community through ritual and/or symbol.
Shifts (culture)Shifts the cultural landscape in order to imagine and enable change.
Sustains (change)Support and celebrate change that has already been won and needs to be sustained.

Timeframe For change

This project seems to be part of a campaign with a clear short-term goal. Short-term goals tend to be things like: create or repeal a law; get a President impeached; make the city administration repair a sidewalk. A campaign with a short-term goal needs a clear theory of change, complete with targets that can be cajoled or pressured into effecting the goal.
To rid of the statue that celebrates someone who represented racism.
This project seems to be part of a campaign with a clear long-term goal. Long-term goals tend to be things like: end racism; end homophobia; make the sun stand still in the sky. A campaign with a long-term goal also needs to have some kind of theory of change.
To end America's approval of these statues of members of the Confederacy, that wanted to upkeep slavery, and also end systemic racism in the United states.

Notes

The statue still stands in this condition after all these months, so its clear that thing will never go back to the status quo. Most likely, the statue will be torn down and no new ones rebuilt in his name or others like him.