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Kris Graves

One month after George Floyd was murdered while in police custody in Minnesota, Kris Graves photographed the remnants of the Confederacy in and around Richmond, Virginia. “One late night on statue-lined Monument Avenue, I came across projections by artist Dustin Klein on the monument of Robert E. Lee,” he writes. “We stood and watched a seemingly endless rotation of Black lives that had been ended at the hands of police.” Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of Floyd’s murder one year later, but Graves writes that “this continues to be an epidemic in the United States.”

A BACKLASH AGAINST SYSTEMIC RACISM 06.18, Richmond, VA The statue of Robert E. Lee is transformed into a Black Lives Matter monument with a projection of George Floyd’s portrait. “It’s time for the healing to start,” tweeted Levar Stoney, Richmond’s mayor. “For public safety, for our history, for our future—the monuments to the Lost Cause are coming down.” Lawsuits attempted to block removal of the statue.

As Black Lives Matter protesters took to the streets to protest police brutality, the movement sparked a broader racial reckoning that led many to push for the removal of monuments to Confederate soldiers who fought to preserve slavery. In Richmond, Virginia, photographer Kris Graves captured the scene as activists transformed a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee into a memorial to Floyd. “It so completely summarizes the political tumult of this year and how deeply rooted these beliefs are on both sides,” Johnson says. Through our standard image toning processes, Nat Geo de-emphasized 10 instances of the f-word that were visible in the photograph. “It’s an extremely rare step for us to take,” writes Editor in Chief Susan Goldberg in the January issue. “We believe that prominently sharing the photo is more important than de-emphasizing a certain swear word; the toning does not diminish its message or impact.”

The Tuskegee Confederate Monument was erected in 1906 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. After the monument was vandalized in June, it was covered with blue tarp by the city of Tuskegee, which is looking for ways to remove the monument completely.

A photograph of George Floyd, killed by Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officers, is projected onto the graffitied Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia. Erected in 1890, the statue memorialises Virginian Confederate General Robert E. Lee.