The 6.4-metre tall bronze likeness of Lee on a horse sits atop a granite pedestal nearly twice that high in the grassy centre of a traffic circle on a famed Richmond street.

Gov. Ralph Northam recently ordered the statue's removal, citing the pain gripping the country over the killing of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis who pleaded for air as a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck.

The Democratic governor will direct the statue to be moved off its massive pedestal and put into storage while his administration seeks input on a new location.