Duke University authorized the removal of a Gen. Robert E. Lee statue from the front of its chapel Saturday after students made very clear they don’t want the Confederate monument there anymore. Vincent Price, president of Duke University, said on the university website that he made the decision with “strong support of the Board of Trustees” after the monument was defaced on Wednesday. (Not that Confederate Gen. Lee himself would have wanted the statue up in the first place.) The violent event set off a nationwide firestorm that led to the toppling of a Confederate monument outside a Durham courthouse on Monday. So far more than 60 Confederate symbols have been removed from city- and state-owned land across the U.S., according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Source: Huffington Post August 19, 2017 13:30 UTC