The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts added a monumental statue on Tuesday, December 10th. The statue “Rumors of War” is a bronze sculpture of a young black man with dreadlocks, astride a muscular horse. The meaning behind the statue is not about any individual. According to The Virginian Pilot, the artist Kehinde Wiley said the sculpture is, “a story about America 2.0….about black men and their place in society. And in a much broader way that society can say yes to black men.”

The sculpture is a response to confederate monuments that are scattered around the United States, mainly in the South. According to The Pilot, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney said, “See, Richmond, we have a complex history…We’ve got the good, the bad and the ugly. All right? But this monument firmly establishes that our city is not living in the past but embracing the future and the good.”

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