Workers Cover Robert E. Lee Statue In Charlottesville

The move was meant to memorialize 32-year-old Heather Heyer who lost her life when a sports auto drove into a crowd demonstrating against a white nationalist rally on August 12, which also led to dozens of injuries.

The city had hoped to have the statues covered by the end of this week. The suspect is reportedly a white nationalist. You let her get murdered.

The council initially planned to leave the Jackson statue in place but at the meeting Tuesday took the first administrative steps toward having it removed as well. Irate residents packed the meeting, screaming and cursing at councilors over the city's response to the rally.

Later in the afternoon, local resident John Miska - sporting a long white beard, a tie-dye shirt, and a pistol strapped to his thigh - attempted to cut down the tarp with a knife.

He said he was at the rally and counter-protests in Charlottesville earlier in the month and "I told both sides to go f-k themselves".

There is an ongoing lawsuit challenging the city council's vote earlier this year to remove the Lee statue. There is a court injunction which now prevents Charlottesville from removing the Robert E. Lee statue, so instead they have covered it with the black tarp.

"The historical and cultural significance of the Confederate statues on our campus - and the connections that individuals have with them - are severely compromised by what they symbolize", Fenves further explained.

Since the violence in Charlottesville, some protesters have reacted by defacing or forcibly removing statues of Confederate generals and soldiers. And in Maryland, Governor Larry Hogan called for removing a statue of Confederate-era Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney from state house grounds.

General Lee was a major figure in the Confederate army during the American civil war and led the fight for the preservation of slavery amongst other things.

It was two years ago that Fenves made a similar move, removing the statue of President Jefferson Davis from the Main Mall and relocating it in the campus' Briscoe center. "But our duty also compels us to acknowledge that those parts of our history that run counter to the university's core values, the values of our state and the enduring values of our nation do not belong on pedestals in the heart of the Forty Acres".

"Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our attractive statues and monuments", the president wrote on Twitter.

A statue of Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was also covered with a black shroud later at a nearby park.