'Robert E. Lee is not a war,' SC city argues to move marker
A marker honoring a Confederate general is not protected from removal under South Carolina law because the way the 2000 act was written only protects monuments to specific wars and “Robert E. Lee is not a war," the city of Charleston plans to argue in court.
The city removed the marker from in front of the downtown Charleston Charter School for Math and Science last July after the principal said the stone memorial had become a “pain point” at the now majority-minority school which was also the first to integrate in the city.
State Attorney General Alan Wilson wrote a letter to Charleston saying the city broke South Carolina's monument protection law called the Heritage Act, which protects statues, street names, markers and anything else considered historic from being changed or removed without permission of the state Legislature.
But Charleston lawyers said a careful, exact reading of the 2000 law supports their actions.
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