Virginia violence adds to push to remove Confederate statues


              This photo taken July 24, 2017, shows James Hendrickson, Corbin, Ky., taking a "selfie" with the Jefferson Davis Statue following a rally in support of keeping the statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis in the Capitol, held on the steps of the State Capitol in Frankfort, Ky. The Kentucky chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans organized the rally. After the photo, he attached the flag to the statue. Kentucky's NAACP is renewing efforts to have the statue removed from the Capitol Rotunda in the aftermath of deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va. (Charles Bertram/Lexington Herald-Leader via AP)
This photo taken July 24, 2017, shows James Hendrickson, Corbin, Ky., taking a "selfie" with the Jefferson Davis Statue following a rally in support of keeping the statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis in the Capitol, held on the steps of the State Capitol in Frankfort, Ky. The Kentucky chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans organized the rally. After the photo, he attached the flag to the statue. Kentucky's NAACP is renewing efforts to have the statue removed from the Capitol Rotunda in the aftermath of deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va. (Charles Bertram/Lexington Herald-Leader via AP)

Violence that erupted at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend has added momentum to a wave of efforts across the South to remove or relocate Confederate monuments.

Lexington, Kentucky, Mayor Jim Gray said Sunday he wants to remove two Confederate statutes from prominent spots in his city. The memorials to John C. Breckinridge and John Hunt Morgan are perched outside a former courthouse that was the site of slave auctions before the Civil War.

In Nashville, dozens of protesters gathered in the Tennessee Capitol on Monday to renew calls to remove a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate cavalry general and an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Protesters draped a black jacket over the head of the bust while chanting, "Tear it down!"

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Associated Press Writer Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed to this report.

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