ALMOST AS SOON as the protests following the police killing of George Floyd went national, in the last weekend of May, they became, everywhere they happened, also deeply local.
In Richmond, Virginia, protesters immediately focused on Monument Avenue, the grand boulevard that runs through the elegant Fan District, and its procession of grandiose statues and memorials honoring the Confederacy. They coated the pedestal of Robert E. Lee’s equestrian statue with a mix of messages marking the national moment: remembering Floyd and others, against police in general, declaring that Black lives matter. But the visual information that sprung up at the monument site marshaled local references, too, ones particular to Richmond events and dynamics.
Quickly, an elegant wood-carved sign appeared that welcomed visitors to “Beautiful Marcus-David Peters Circle, Liberated by the People,” named for a man whom Richmond police killed in 2018. After someone removed it overnight, a new one, even bigger and more solid, was planted in its place. The designation stuck as protesters and even local journalists shared updates on social media from “MDP Circle” — an act of renaming by collective fait accompli.
Six weeks later, Monument Avenue has been utterly transformed, at a speed that neither detractors nor defenders of the statues anticipated, having been deadlocked for decades in arguments, protests, studies, and urban-design exercises — not to mention a Virginia state law that prevented cities from removing these monuments that was repealed early this year. By decision of the mayor, Levar Stoney, the city of Richmond has removed the four Confederate statues under its control — of Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, J.E.B. Stuart, and Matthew Fontaine Maury — following a cue from the protesters, who pulled down the Davis statue themselves, separating it from the bombastic, colonnaded shrine to the Confederacy of which it was the centerpiece.
The Lee statue, meanwhile, is slated to come down by decision of Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam, though a last-ditch lawsuit filed by defenders of the statue needs to be overcome. In the meantime, however, MDP Circle has become not just the site of daily local protests but a vital national — even global — reference in this season of insurrection, as images have circulated daily of the organic culture that has sprouted there.
Black Virginians have made emotional pilgrimages to reclaim a space that for over a century was physically orchestrated to signify their exclusion and subordinacy. There have been rallies, spontaneous concerts, and innumerable spontaneous photo shoots, poignant and defiant. Nightly projections onto the statue and pedestal, by local artists Dustin Klein and Alex Criqui, have become the most powerful visual text of this restless season. The images have included political quotes and images of Floyd, other victims of police, and great figures in Black history.
The scenes from Richmond have boosted protesters elsewhere in a loop of creative emulation. They express, in ways that are inherently impossible to disentangle, both the clear set of shared national concerns that have coalesced a movement, and the city’s idiosyncratic local mix of Black politics, a grassroots-minded artist community, and vibrant punk, skater, and anti-fascist scenes.
There are similar scenes unfolding across the country, each with its own unique flavor.