Despite efforts from a group of Republican lawmakers, a Confederate statue in the Arlington National Cemetery will be removed in the coming days.
The Reconciliation Monument, known as the Confederate Statue, is part of the push to remove military installations named after the Confederacy in the wake of the summer 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
According to a press release from the national cemetery, the statue will be removed from the cemetery by Dec. 22.
The move to remove the statue is in compliance with the Congressional mandate to remove all Confederate memorials by Jan. 1, 2024.
The Congressional mandate, passed in 2020, declared that the Department of Defense must remove all “names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America” by Jan. 1, 2024.
An Arlington National Cemetery spokesperson confirmed to Fox News Digital that safety fencing has been installed around the Confederate Memorial as preparation begins to deconstruct the memorial, which was erected in 1914.
While the work occurs, the surrounding landscape, graves, and headstones will be protected, the cemetery said.
Monument to the Confederate Dead, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia, USA, photo by Theodor Horydczak. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The deconstruction of the memorial comes after a group of GOP lawmakers, led by Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., wrote a letter to Secretary Austin and demanded that they keep the Confederate Memorial in place until the end of the fiscal year 2024 appropriations process.
