Confederate group requests to hold rally at Lee statue in Richmond

A Confederate heritage group has requested to hold a rally at a Confederate statue in Richmond, Va., next month.

The Americans for Richmond Monument Preservation have requested permission from the state of Virginia to hold an event at a monument of Robert E. Lee on Sept. 16, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

The event in the commonwealth’s capital would take place just more than a month after this weekend’s violent rally in Charlottesville, Va., which centered around another statue of Lee.

{mosads}Virginia’s Department of General Services received a request from the group and are now reviewing the application, an agency spokeswoman told the Times-Dispatch. She said that a former commander of the Virginia chapter of Sons of Confederate Veterans filed the application.

A spokesman for Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney told the Times-Dispatch that city and Capitol police will meet to discuss the application, and the city’s police chief said more information about the permit will come out later this week.

The request comes on the heels of Saturday’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, during which a man drove his car into a crowd of counterprotestors, killing one person and injuring 19 others. The alleged driver was arrested shortly after and charged with second-degree murder, among other charges.