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On Tuesday night Hollywood Forever Cemetery announced that they would be removing a controversial Confederate monument in the wake of last weekend's violent white supremacist uprising in Charlottesville. As of 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning, the monument has been taken down, NBC Los Angeles reports.
The six-foot granite monument was maintained by the Long Beach chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), and Hollywood Forever Cemetery did not have the legal right to remove it without the UDC's permission, Hollywood Forever founder and co-owner Tyler Cassity told LAist on Tuesday. However, after the statue became a target for vandalism and local activists called for its removal, the UDC requested that the monument be taken out of the cemetery.
Confederate monument on the truck bed. It's now up to the owners to decide what to do with it. @NBCLA pic.twitter.com/tA6tMcLHra
— Christine Kim (@ChristineKimNow) August 16, 2017
The monument at Hollywood Forever was one of at least four spaces dedicated to the Confederacy in California, according to a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. NBC Los Angeles reports that Hollywood Forever will put the monument into storage on Wednesday.
Individual grave markers for the 30-some Confederate soldiers buried at Hollywood Forever will remain despite the monument's removal, Cassity told LAist on Tuesday. LAist reached out to the United Daughters of the Confederacy for comment on their decision to remove the statue, but did not immediately hear back.