Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 2, 2019

NORFOLK, Va.(UFJ)- Circuit Court Judge Mary Jane Hall will

hear arguments soon on a preliminary injunction and a lawsuit filed
against the City of Norfolk by civil rights activists. The Honorable
Jerrauld C. Jones, Presiding Judge, Chief Judge, has assigned the
Honorable Judge Hall to the suit to remove, relocate or otherwise,
dispose of the City’s Confederate monument.

The Plaintiffs Roy L. Perry-Bey, and Ronald M. Green have filed

supporting historical documents and affidavits from citizens to remove or
relocate the City’s (“public nuisance”), Confederate Monument honoring
the Confederate States of America and the brutally racist Jim Crow era,
from it’s present location in downtown Norfolk, Virginia.

Almost none of the monuments were put up right after the Civil War.
Some were erected during the civil rights era of the early 1960s, which
coincided with the war’s centennial, but the vast majority of monuments
date to between 1895 and World War I.

They were part of a campaign to paint the Southern cause in the Civil
War as just and slavery as a benevolent institution, and their installation
came against a backdrop of Jim Crow violence and oppression of African
Americans. The monuments were put up as explicit symbols of white
supremacy.

Plaintiffs will ask Judge Hall in writing the order to contemplate

removing or relocating the (“public nuisance”), the Confederate
monument to Magnolia Cemetery, and that it would include their
motions, and memorandums in support, not just the defendants
anticipated response to the lawsuit.
The upcoming hearing will began in Norfolk Circuit Court, any decision
made by Judge Hall would be a preliminary injunction. A trial date is
tentatively scheduled for July 31, 2019.

The lawsuit was filed on April 29, 2019, by Mr. Perry-Bey, and Mr.
Green, longtime Civil Rights Activist-against the City of Norfolk and
Norfolk City Attorneys Office demanding that it abide by City Council’s
unanimous decision and resolution during an agenda session to move or
relocate the City’s Confederate monument that sits on East Main Street in
downtown Norfolk.

The lawsuit alleges violations of the Plaintiffs First amendment and

Fourteenth Amendment rights, that the Confederate monument is not a
war memorial argue the City of Norfolk and Norfolk City Attorney
Office, offended the City’s Charter pursuant § 2 by it’s unreasonable
delay, failure or refusal to abide by the City Council’s unanimous vote
during an agenda session to remove, relocate or otherwise dispose
of its Confederate monument.

Plaintiffs lawsuit against the City of Norfolk, argue the law does not
apply retroactively, and include a legal challenge to the constitutionality
of Va. Code § 15-2-1812, and Va. Code § 18. 2-137, applicability “(if
any”), to the City of Norfolk, which Mayor Kenneth Alexander said, in
2017, it appears that we have the authority. “We just want to make sure
that we’er crystal clear. We want to move it one time-one and done.

In 2016, the Republican legislature passed legislation clarifying that a

locality cannot move a war memorial no matter when it was erected.
Governor Terry McAuliffe vetoed HB 587 during the (2016 Session).
Norfolk City Attorney Bernard A. Pishko wrote in an August 18,
2017, opinion to the attorney general: “It is my opinion that neither the
‘civil’ nor the ‘criminal’ statute prohibits the relocation being considered
by Norfolk City Council.”

_______
The Norfolk City Council, is the City Council, and does not work for
any other City Council, it is responsible for it’s action or inaction.
Norfolk also sent Herring a memo from the Norfolk Commonwealth’s
Attorney’s Office that agreed:

“While the General Assembly has imposed certain restrictions on the

removal or relocation of Monuments through Va. Code § 15-2-1812
and its predecessor statutes going back to 1904, those restrictions do
not appear to apply to most Monuments put up in municipalities prior
to 1998.

“For that reason, the removal or relocation of a Monument put up in

a municipality, especially if put up by order of a municipal governing
body or a private entity with the permission of that governing body,
would not implicate Va. Code § 18.2-137 (the statute imposing criminal
penalties for removal, etc. of war monuments).”

Attorney General Mark R. Herring issued an advisory opinion, press

statement that cities can remove or relocate Confederate monuments as
long as there are no individual laws or restrictions governing those
particular monuments.

Plaintiffs are claiming the City have every right under the law to remove
or relocate Confederate monuments, even under state law code 15.2-1812,
Memorials for War Veterans, which was amended in 1997.

Plaintiffs claim the Confederate Monument consistently reminds them

of the most important challenges they still face after Jim Crow: land,
labor, housing, health, racism, economics, discrimination, corrective
justice, institutional racism, racial inequality, hate, education, politics,
white privilege, bigotry, disenfranchisement, employment disparity
and fundamental questions posed by the deconstruction of slavery.

The City of Norfolk, and Norfolk City Attorney Office was served the
civil rights lawsuit on Tuesday, April 30, 2019, and have 21 days to hire
lawyers to respond to the suit.
Today’s defenders of Confederate monuments are either unaware of the
historical context or do not care. Like generations of whites before them,
they are more invested in the mythology that has attached itself to these
sentinels of white supremacy, because it serves their cause.

Contact: Mr. Perry-Bey (804) 362-0011 or Mr. Green (757) 348-0436

https://youtu.be/esS6t2QPiAk