University of Texas removing three Confederate statues

Three statues honoring top Confederate figures will be removed from their prominent positions on the University of Texas, Austin, campus, according to a local TV station.

Greg Fenves, the president of the university, told ABC 13 late Sunday night that three statues honoring Gen. Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, another Confederate general, and Confederate Postmaster Gen. John H. Reagan would be removed overnight. 

“Last week, the horrific displays of hatred at the University of Virginia and in Charlottesville shocked and saddened the nation. These events make it clear, now more than ever, that Confederate monuments have become symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism,” Fenves said in a statement.

{mosads}The statues will be moved to an area on the campus dedicated to American history, the TV station reported.

The university had already removed a statue of Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy’s president, in 2015. 

Confederate statues have become a major topic of public debate in the past week, after a planned protest by white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Va.

The event sparked anti-racism counterprotesters and ended in the death of one woman and the injuries of at least 19 others after a man with reported ties to white supremacists rammed his car into the counterprotesters.