A federal judge has blocked the removal of a Civil War memorial from Arlington National Cemetery over a lawsuit that says that its removal would damage the graves of the Confederate soldiers buried around the memorial.
U.S. District Judge Rossie Alston issued a temporary restraining order on Monday stopping the Pentagon’s removal of the Reconciliation Monument, also known as the Confederate Memorial, after the Defend Arlington group sued to stop the memorial’s removal. The memorial was ordered to be removed after Congress created a commission in 2021 to evaluate links to the Confederacy on any federal property.
Alston’s order blocks “any acts to deconstruct, tear down, remove, or alter the object of this case.”
Defend Arlington has opposed the removal of the memorial, saying that taking it down would be illegal. The memorial was first erected in 1914 in a section of the…
