FORT MONROE, Va. (AP) — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is praising the state’s removal of Confederate president Jefferson Davis’ name from an archway at the site where the first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia 400 years ago.
Northam said at a news conference Tuesday that removing the letters from a 1950s-era archway reading “Jefferson Davis Memorial Park” at Fort Monroe will make the state more “welcoming and reflective of our values.”
The letters were removed Friday. They will be placed in a museum at the former military base, which overlooks Chesapeake Bay and was the site of the 1619 arrival of the state’s first Africans.
Davis was imprisoned at the fort after the Civil War.
Northam pledged to work toward racial reconciliation earlier this year after a racist yearbook photo almost forced him from office.
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