Fact check: What cities have removed the most confederate statues since 2020?

1. Why Richmond Keeps Coming Up: a City at the Center of Monument Removals

Richmond is repeatedly cited as a focal point for Confederate statue removals because it was the Confederacy’s capital and had numerous large statues removed beginning in 2020, including monuments to generals such as Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart, and broader municipal efforts to address Confederate commemoration. Coverage highlights Richmond’s removals as emblematic of a larger statewide trend in Virginia, and the city’s actions have been covered as politically and culturally consequential, reflecting both local policy shifts and national attention ^{[1] [3]}. These reports link Richmond’s removals to Virginia’s status as the state with the most removals in 2020, underscoring a concentrated pattern rather than dispersed, single-event actions ^[3].

2. Charlottesville’s High-Profile Melting: From Protest Flashpoint to Museum Exhibit

Charlottesville is notable not only for removing a Robert E. Lee statue but for transforming that removal into an artistic and historical statement: the figure was melted down and later displayed in a Los Angeles exhibit, signaling a new phase in how cities dispose of or reinterpret Confederate monuments. Reporting emphasizes the symbolic weight of Charlottesville’s removal, given the 2017 Unite the Right rally and subsequent national debate; the city’s decision is framed as both a response to local trauma and an entry into the national conversation over monument recontextualization ^{[4] [5] [6]}. These sources describe the movement from contested public symbol to curated museum object, showing one path cities have taken.

3. Numbers Diverge: How Many Monuments Were Removed, and Who Counts Them?

Published tallies vary: one account cites nearly 100 monuments removed in 2020 specifically (94 monuments counted) and notes over 700 Confederate symbols remaining, while other summaries refer to over 160 or even “over 300” removals since 2020, depending on whether plaques, building names, and other symbols are included. This disagreement stems from different counting methodologies—some sources count only freestanding statues, others include plaques, road names, and school names—so headline totals reflect choices about scope rather than strictly contradictory facts ^{[2] [7] [1]}.

4. Virginia Dominates the State-Level Picture: Why That Matters

Multiple sources identify Virginia as the state with the most Confederate symbol removals in 2020, reporting figures such as 71 renamings/removals in one dataset and asserting that Virginia led the nation in 2020 activity. This concentration is explained by Virginia’s dense legacy of Confederate monuments concentrated in urban centers like Richmond and Charlottesville, as well as activist and political momentum within the state during 2020 debates over racial justice. The pattern suggests that removal activity clustered geographically, so city-level leadership is often part of a larger statewide movement rather than isolated municipal decisions ^{[3] [7] [1]}.

5. Other Cities Mentioned: Huntsville, Los Angeles, and Nationwide Trends

Beyond Virginia, reporting names Huntsville, Alabama, as one locality that removed Confederate monuments from public spaces amid protests, and Los Angeles appears as a significant recontextualizer by hosting exhibits of decommissioned Confederate statues. These examples highlight two distinct post-removal approaches—relocation or removal from public space, and repurposing as museum or art objects—and show that practices vary by local politics and institutional choices, not just by frequency of removals ^{[8] [6] [4]}.

6. Motives, Contention, and the Debate Over Erasure vs. Reckoning

The sources present competing narratives: proponents frame removals as necessary to confront slavery, white supremacy, and public commemoration choices, while opponents frame them as historical erasure. Coverage of Charlottesville and Richmond emphasizes both the moral argument for removal and the political contention the decisions provoke. The diverse reporting suggests that removal actions are as much about civic identity and memory policy as about the physical relocation of statues, making tallying removals only part of understanding the broader civic impact ^{[5] [8]}.

7. Bottom Line: Cities with the Most Removals and Remaining Uncertainties

From the provided sources, Richmond and Charlottesville emerge as the highest-profile cities that have removed the most prominent Confederate monuments since 2020, and Virginia as the state with the largest count of removals in that period; national totals range from roughly dozens in 2020 (around 94 monuments) to well over 160 or several hundred when including a wider set of symbols and actions. The critical caveat is that counts differ by definition and source, so any definitive ranking requires a single methodology; the existing reporting shows concentration in Virginia and a diversity of local approaches to removal and re-use ^{[1] [2] [7] [4]}.