Descendants of Confederate leaders and slave owners, whose statues are at the heart of a controversy around white supremacy in the US, are calling for them to be taken down.
The monuments have sparked tensions between conservatives and liberals with supporters saying they mark an important aspect to American history and opponents calling them festering symbols of racism.
The controversy boiled over into violence on Saturday when neo-Nazis and white supremacists marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, where a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee was due to be removed.
They chanted antisemitic, racist and neo-Nazi slogans and violence erupted with counter-demonstrators. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed and 19 others were injured when a car rammed through a crowd who were opposing the white supremacist protest.
Now the relatives of Robert E. Lee as well as of Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson – two other Confederate leaders in the US Civil War – have each separately said they are happy for the monuments to go.
Robert E. Lee V, of Washington DC told CNN the violence on Saturday was 'senseless' and 'sad' for his family.
'Eventually, someone is going to have to make a decision, and if that's the local lawmaker, so be it. But we have to be able to have that conversation without all of the hatred and the violence. And if they choose to take those statues down, fine,' he said.
'Those sorts of acts on Saturday, that's just not to be tolerated,' he added. 'We feel strongly that Gen. Lee would never ever stand for that sort of violence.
'We just want people to know that the Lee family just really wants to send their best to the people in Charlottesville.'
In a separate statement, Bertram Hayes-Davis, great-great-grandson of the Confederate president Jefferson Davis told CNN the statues should be removed to a museum if they are 'offensive to a large majority of the public'.
He said: 'In a public place, if it is offensive and people are taking issue with it, let's move it. Let's put it somewhere where historically it fits with the area around it so you can have people come to see it, who want to understand that history and that individual.'
Going on to speak about the Confederate flag, which was flown alongside swastikas by white supremacists on Saturday, Hayes Davies said: 'The Confederate battle flag, in my estimation, has been hijacked by that group of racist individuals and should be in a museum which indicates it's a military flag and not a flag of the Confederate States of America.'
Two men who say there are great-great grandsons of Stonewall Jackson have published an open letter asking the Richmond mayor to remove a statue to their forefather in the town.
'The people who descended on Charlottesville last weekend were there to make a naked show of force for white supremacy,' the pair wrote in a letter, first published in Slate.
'We are writing to say that we understand justice very differently from our grandfather's grandfather, and we wish to make it clear his statue does not represent us,' they added.
William Jackson Christian and Warren Edmund Christian concluded: 'While we are not ashamed of our great great grandfather, we are ashamed to benefit from white supremacy while our black family and friends suffer. We are ashamed of the monument.'
It comes as Donald Trump refuses to drop the controversy, stacking two Republican senators in a series of Twitter posts on Thursday.
He also took aim at the removal or consideration for removal of Confederate statues and monuments in a long list of cities in California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Tennessee, Virginia, and Texas, as well as Washington, DC
'Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You can't change history, but you can learn from it,' Trump wrote on Twitter.
'Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson - who's next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish!' Trump said.
