On September 8, 2021, the Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia was removed—the final Confederate monument to be toppled on Monument Avenue, the one-and-a-half-mile boulevard dedicated to Confederate memory. Two years prior, Kehinde Wiley unveiled Rumors of War, a 27-foot-tall and 16- foot-wide bronze statue showing a young Black man with dreadlocks atop a horse in a hoodie, ripped jeans, and Nikes. Permanently installed outside of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the monument was created to contest the equestrian monuments on Monument Avenue, questioning the historical ideology behind such a representation in the nettlesome geography of Richmond. This paper shows the ways that the monument served as a preface and rallying cry to the contestations and monument removal that would take place on Monument Avenue in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by unpacking the ways in which it lays bare the relationship between white supremacy and the symbolic landscape within the former Confederate capital. In this, I also consider Rumors of War’s role three years after its erection, extending its meaning beyond a historical clap-back or cultural unbundling by critically engaging the history of black equestrians and placing the work in a global context that surpasses any geographic specificity, as it reveals the unseen realities that reverberate from Richmond across the world: from slavery, colonialism, and segregation of the past to the systemic racism and police brutality of today.

2021 年 9 月 8 日，位于弗吉尼亚州里士满的罗伯特·李纪念碑被拆除——纪念碑大道上最后一座被推倒的邦联纪念碑，这条一英里半的林荫大道致力于缅怀邦联。两年前，Kehinde Wiley 公布了战争谣言，一尊 27 英尺高、16 英尺宽的青铜雕像，雕像上是一位留着长发绺的年轻黑人，他骑在马背上，身穿连帽衫、破洞牛仔裤和耐克鞋。永久安装在弗吉尼亚美术博物馆外，这座纪念碑的创建是为了与纪念碑大道上的马术纪念碑竞争，质疑在里士满烦人的地理环境中这种表现背后的历史意识形态。本文展示了在乔治·弗洛伊德 (George Floyd) 被谋杀后纪念碑大道上发生的辩论和纪念碑拆除的序言和战斗口号，通过解开它揭示白人之间关系的方式前邦联首都内的至高无上和象征性景观。在这方面，我还考虑了战争谣言它在竖立三年后的作用，通过批判性地参与黑人马术的历史并将作品置于超越任何地理特异性的全球背景下，将其意义扩展到历史回击或文化分拆之外，因为它揭示了看不见的现实从里士满回荡到世界各地：从过去的奴隶制、殖民主义和种族隔离到今天的系统性种族主义和警察暴行。