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The statue was rendered into bronze ore Saturday at a foundry in an undisclosed location, according to University of Virginia professor Jalane Schmidt.
Schmidt co-leads “Swords into Plowshares,” a project dedicated to transforming the controversial Lee statue into public art.
She told CNN the group has chosen to withhold the name and location of the foundry to protect the site and its employees from threats and intimidation.
“It was a matter of responsibility, both to our community and to any other community,” she said of the organization’s decision to melt the statue. “We didn’t want to send it down the road to another community to like, send our toxic waste down the road.”
The monument to Lee stood in a park once named after the confederate general for nearly 100 years. But in 2017, amid a nationwide call to tear down confederate monuments, the city council voted to remove the statue.