ATHENS, Ga. -- A literary society with more than 200 years of history with the University of Georgia voted, Thursday night, to remove a portrait of Robert E. Lee from its grounds.
The Red and Black reports that the Demosthenian Literary Society voted 27-0 to remove a portrait of the Confederate general from the upper chamber of its hall.
The vote comes amidst controversy over monuments and other memorials to the Confederacy across the South in recent months. Those only escalated after the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. That's where an alleged Nazi sympathizer and former teacher slammed into several counter protesters who came out against an alt-right demonstration. The incident left one counter-protester dead and several others injured.
The demonstration began as a protest against the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in the town. Now after the tragedy that followed, one more memorial to Lee has been taken down at a university campus hundreds of miles to the south.
Lee has been considered an honorary member of Demosthenian until this point. It's unclear how the night's decision will impact that distinction.
BREAKING: Demosthenian Literary Society voted 27-1 in the immediate removal of a Robert E Lee portrait. @redandblack pic.twitter.com/Kk77AZhJeP
— Ashlyn Webb (@ashlynwebb16) August 25, 2017
