On your right is the spot where the Robert E. Lee Memorial stood in what used to be called Lee Plaza. It was a granite monument, about ten feet tall... the kind of heavy stone statement that’s meant to feel permanent. It went up on October 4, 1960, put there by the William Watts Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. And here’s the part that adds tension to the timing: it was installed right as Roanoke’s all-white school system was beginning to enroll its first two Black students. That’s not an accident of the calendar. It also landed just before the Civil War centennial in 1961, when a lot of communities were polishing certain versions of the past until they shined.
Fast-forward to June 2020. The city council voted to start the legal steps to remove it, after Virginia changed its law to finally allow local governments to take down Confederate monuments on public property-so long as there’s a vote and the city tries to find the monument a new home.
But Roanoke didn’t get a neat, daylight removal. Just before midnight on July 22, 2020, the monument was found torn down... broken cleanly into two pieces. A 70-year-old man, William Foreman, was arrested a couple days later after being caught vandalizing it the night before, and he later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.
And the plaza itself changed, too: it was renamed Lacks Plaza, honoring Henrietta Lacks, born in Roanoke, whose cells became the first immortalized human cell line. A statue of her was unveiled here on October 4, 2023, after fundraising led by the vice-mayor and the Harrison Museum of African American Culture. Same date... very different message.
When you’re set, the United States District Court is a 5-minute walk heading west.
