States have been taking down confederate statues and flags in public places for a long time now. GOP former Governor Nicki Haley took the confederate flag off the capitol building a few years ago.  White Supremacists were looking for any excuse to rally and found one, unfortunately in Virginia where the majority came from  out of state to march. The white supremacist who ran over the counter protestors with his car, he was from Ohio so what was his connection and the meaning to him of keeping the Statue of Robert E Lee in a public park in the state of Virginia. I would venture since the killer was from Ohio it was not his love of the Southern history in his heart that excited him and made him act, I would say it was the statue in a public place of traitor and slave owner Robert E Lee was to be left in the park as a symbol of whites once had their thumbs on the blacks, lest we never forget.