Brooklyn church removes plaques honoring Lee

Wednesday, August 16, 2017 09:11PM

FORT HAMILTON, Brooklyn -- Plaques honoring Gen. Robert E. Lee were removed from a church property in Brooklyn on Wednesday, and the governor called on the Army to remove the names of Lee and another Confederate general from the streets of a nearby fort amid a national debate over whether monuments to Southern Civil War figures should be removed.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote to Acting Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy saying renaming Stonewall Jackson Drive and General Lee Avenue is especially important following events in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a woman was killed while demonstrating against a white nationalist rally ...

Lee's name also was on plaques on the grounds of a nearby church, the now-closed St. John's Episcopal Church. The larger of the two plaques was placed there by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1912. It commemorated the spot where Lee is said to have planted a tree while serving in the Army at Fort Hamilton two decades before he became commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia ...

Bishop Lawrence Provenzano of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, which owns the property, said no one had really given much thought to the plaques, which were left behind when the church was closed in September 2014. A minister who called Tuesday reminded the diocese and suggested the plaques be removed ...

http://abc7ny.com/society/nyc-church-removes-2-plaques-honoring-robert-e-lee/2313530/