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A crowd erupted in cheers and song Wednesday as work crews hoisted an enormous statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee off of the giant pedestal where it has towered over Virginia鈥檚 capital city for more than a century.

One of America鈥檚 largest monuments to the Confederacy, the equestrian statue was lifted down to the ground just before 9 a.m., after a construction worker who strapped harnesses around Mr. Lee and his horse lifted his arms in the air and counted down, 鈥淭hree, two, one!鈥� to jubilant shouts from a crowd of hundreds. A work crew then began cutting it into pieces.

鈥淭his was a long time coming, part of the healing process so Virginia can move forward and be a welcoming state with inclusiveness and diversity,鈥� said Gov. Ralph Northam, who was there to witness the event. The Democrat said it represents 鈥渕ore than 400 years of history that we should not be proud of,鈥� and congratulated Virginians for supporting its removal.

Sharon Jennings, an African American born and raised in Richmond, said the statue had to go, but she still had mixed feelings seeing it come down.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a good day, and it鈥檚 a sad day at the same time,鈥� Ms. Jennings said. 鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 matter what color you are, if you really like history, and you understand what this street has been your whole life and you鈥檝e grown up this way, you鈥檙e thinking, 鈥極h, my God.鈥� But when you get older you understand that it does need to come down.鈥�

Some chanted 鈥淲hose streets? Our streets!鈥� and sang, 鈥淗ey hey hey, goodbye.鈥� There was a brief commotion when a man with a Black Lives Matter flag ran into the fenced-off work area. He was quickly detained by police and escorted out, where he began arguing with others in the crowd.

Mr. Northam ordered the statue taken down last summer, citing the pain felt across the country over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck. But his plans were tied up in litigation until the Supreme Court of Virginia cleared the way last week.

The 21-foot high bronze sculpture sat atop a granite pedestal nearly twice that tall, towering above Monument Avenue since 1890 in this former capital of the Confederacy.

The state brought in a deconstruction crew surrounded by a heavy police presence to strap the statue to a crane. State, capitol, and city police officers closed streets for blocks around the state-owned traffic circle in Richmond, using heavy equipment and crowd-control barriers to keep crowds away. The Federal Aviation Administration granted the state鈥檚 request to ban drone flights during the event, which was livestreamed through the governor鈥檚 Facebook and Twitter accounts.

鈥淭his is a historic moment for the city of Richmond. The city, the community at large is saying that we鈥檙e not going to stand for these symbols of hate in our city anymore,鈥� said Rachel Smucker a Richmond resident who was at the viewing site early Wednesday with her sister.

Ms. Smucker, who is white, said she moved to Richmond around three years ago. It was her first time living in the South, and she found Monument Avenue 鈥渏arring.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檝e always found it to be offensive, as a symbol of protecting slavery and the racism that people of color still face today,鈥� Ms. Smucker said.

The one-of-a-kind piece, valued for its artistic quality, stood among four other massive Confederate statues on the avenue, but the city removed the others last summer.

鈥淲e put things on pedestals when we want people to look up,鈥� Mr. Northam said in June 2020 when he announced the removal plan.

鈥淭hink about the message that this sends to people coming from around the world to visit the capital city of one of the largest states in our country. Or to young children.鈥�

The statue was being cut into at least two pieces so that it could be hauled to an undisclosed state-owned facility until a decision is made about its final disposition. The pedestal is to remain for the time being, although workers are expected to remove decorative plaques and extricate a time capsule on Thursday.

After Mr. Floyd鈥檚 death, the area around the statute became a hub for protests and occasional clashes between police and demonstrators.

The pedestal has been covered by constantly evolving, colorful graffiti, with many of the hand-painted messages denouncing police and demanding an end to systemic racism and inequality.

The decisions by the governor and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney to remove the Confederate tributes marked a major victory for civil rights activists, whose previous calls over the decades to remove the statues had been steadfastly rebuked by city and state officials alike.

A previous wave of resistance to the statues came in 2017 when a rally of white supremacists in the city of Charlottesville erupted into violence. Other Confederate monuments started falling around the country.

But in Virginia, local governments were hamstrung by a state law that protected memorials to war veterans. That law was amended in 2020 by the new Democratic majority at the statehouse and signed by Mr. Northam. With the changes that took effect on July 1, 2020, localities could decide the monuments鈥� fate.

Mr. Stoney then moved swiftly, citing the continuing demonstrations and concerns that protesters could get hurt if they tried to bring down the enormous statues themselves.

Work crews removed statues of Gen. Thomas 鈥淪tonewall鈥� Jackson, Confederate naval officer Matthew Maury, and Gen. J.E.B. Stuart from the thoroughfare. Before Mr. Stoney鈥檚 decree, protesters toppled a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Although the figures themselves are gone, their pedestals remain.

Mr. Northam鈥檚 plans to remove the Lee statue stalled until the Supreme Court of Virginia cleared the way last week in unanimous rulings against two lawsuits, saying that in a democracy, 鈥渧alues change and public policy changes too.鈥�

The changes have remade the prestigious avenue, which is lined with mansions and tony apartments and is partly preserved as a National Historic Landmark district. Richmond officials are advancing plans to remove the pedestals and other remnants of the statuary and at least temporarily pave over or re-landscape the sites. Mr. Northam has tapped the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to lead a community-driven redesign for the whole avenue, a process that is expected to be drawn-out and has yet to make substantial progress.

A statue of Black tennis hero and Richmond native Arthur Ashe that was erected on the avenue in 1996 is expected to remain.

As for the Lee statue, Mr. Northam has said his administration will seek public input on what should happen to it next.

This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP聽writer Alan Suderman contributed to this report.