Spontaneous cheers broke out on Saturday as the equestrian statue of Southern General Robert E. Lee was lifted from its pedestal in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia.

Four years after right-wing extremists marched into the university town, the statue was lifted onto a trailer by a crane and transported away.

For the time being it comes to a warehouse.

The city still wants to discuss what to do with the statue that has stood on Market Street for almost a century in the future.

Majid Sattar

Political correspondent for North America based in Washington.

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Residents and visitors who had heard of the city's plans the day before had gathered near the statue - as witnesses to the end of a sad chapter in the city's history.

The statue of General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was also removed.

There were no disturbances.

A political memory debate began

Charlottesville City Council decided in early 2016 to remove the Lee statue from its pedestal.

The initiative came from the Afro-American high school student Zyahna Bryant, who had petitioned the city council to remove the symbol of slavery.

The battle concept of “cancel culture” has not yet been mentioned.

A year earlier, a right-wing radical had shot and killed nine African Americans in a church in Charleston, South Carolina. The act caused the then Republican governor of the state, Nikki Haley, to remove the southern state flag in front of the parliament building - and it sparked a debate on the politics of memory about the use of symbols of the southern states.

In Charlottesville, the city council's resolution was followed by a long legal battle.

In the summer of 2017, plans to remove the statue of the general who led the Confederate Army in the civil war sparked serious rioting.

Right-wing extremists marched on - but also citizens who turned against the banishment of monuments or did not want the southern symbolism to be reduced to racism.

Neo-Nazis openly chanted anti-Semitic slogans and clashed with counter-demonstrators.

A right-wing radical drove his car into a crowd and killed a woman.

He was later sentenced to life imprisonment.

Trump: Good people on both sides

After the riots, Donald Trump made memorable appearances. The president initially condemned the "outrageous demonstration of hatred and violence on many sides". When the addition “on many sides” was also criticized by Republicans, Trump said: “Racism is evil.” And anyone who violates in the name of racism is a criminal. But it did not stop at this statement. Trump later said the infamous phrase: There were some very bad people in the group, but also "some very good people on both sides".

He responded to the following criticism by pointing out that he did not mean the extremists, but only those people who did not want the Lee statue to be removed.

Since he had also asked at the last appearance where to stop with the eradication of the story, after all, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were also slave owners, the summer of 2017 can be described as the beginning of the cancel culture debate.

In Charlottesville, a third statue was removed on Saturday, showing the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their guide, the Shoshoness Sacagawea.

Trump's appearance was also the beginning of something else: Joe Biden claims to have decided that day to run again for the presidency.