Richmond removes last city-owned Confederate statue after two-year purge

The effort to remove Gen AP Hill's monument was complicated as his remains were interred beneath it

The city of Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy for most of the civil war, removed its last city-owned Confederate statue on Monday, more than two years after it began to purge itself of what many saw as painful symbols of racial oppression.

It took just minutes to free the statue of Confederate Gen AP Hill from its base, before a crane using yellow straps looped under the statue's arms lifted it on to a bed of tires on a flatbed truck. After the statue was removed, the crew got to work removing the base.