Crews work quickly to remove the statue of Matthew Fontaine Maury. The monument sat on a tree lined boulevard aptly named "Monument Avenue". The avenue is lined with large affluent homes and until recently, it was punctuated with massive Confederate statues. After the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, protesters in the city took to the streets. Marches were organized and some protesters turned their attention to the Confederate monuments in the city. The plinths of many of the monuments, including the Maury Monument, were painted with messages that called for police reform. Protesters even tried to topple a few of the smaller statues. The statue of Maury commemorated his Confederate naval service. First unveiled in 1929, the statue was removed in July of 2020. It was the first of Richmond's Confederate statues to be removed after Richmond's Mayor Levar Stoney utilized his emergency powers to have the statues removed. After the social justice protests following the death of George Floyd, the unified calls for justice and reform, and several court cases, all five of Monument Avenue’s Confederate statues were removed, and their pedestals were dismantled.