Jefferson Davis Memorial

The Jefferson Davis Memorial was a memorial for Jefferson Davis (1808–1889), president of the Confederate States of America from 1861 to 1865, installed along Richmond, Virginia's Monument Avenue, in the United States. The monument was unveiled on June 3, 1907. The bronze representation of Jefferson Davis was toppled by protesters during the George Floyd protests in June 2020. The east-facing monument sported a 65-foot-tall (20 m) Doric column topped by a female bronze figure called Vindicatrix, an allegorical representation of the South. States that sent troops for the Confederacy. The bronze statues, Vindacatrix at the top and Jefferson Davis in the center—the latter situated atop a block of granite —were designed by Edward Virginius Valentine; the arrangement was planned by William C. Noland.  The frieze carries words Jefferson Davis spoke in his farewell address to the U.S. Senate on January 21, 1861. During the protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the bronze statue of Davis was torn down by protesters on June 10, 2020. The rest of the monument is pending removal; the statue of Vindicatrix, representing Southern womanhood, on top of the central column was removed by the City of Richmond on July 8, 2020. The vandalized statue is set to be displayed temporarily at The Valentine in Richmond—a museum whose first president was Edward Virginius Valentine, the statue's sculptor—as part of the museum's This is Richmond, Virginia exhibit.The statue is on loan from the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia. It will be displayed laying horizontally in its 2020 state: there is damage to the statue's head and right arm, and splatters of pink paint remain on the statue, as well as torn pieces of toilet paper around the statue's collar. Valentine curator Christina Vida stated that, we wanted to make sure that paint stays applied. That the damage that occurred to it when it was pulled down by protesters that it stays just that way.