Gen. Robert E. Lee's great-great grandson Wednesday condemned the Charlottesville violence and said the time might be "appropriate" for display Confederate statues in museums.
"Eventually, someone is going to have to make a decision, and if that's the local lawmaker, so be it," Robert E. Lee V, 54, who lives in Washington, told Polo Sandoval on CNN.
"But we have to be able to have that conversation without all of the hatred and the violence," he added. "And if they choose to take those statues down, fine.
"Maybe it's appropriate to have them in museums or to put them in some sort of historical context in that regard."
Violence erupted in Charlottesville on Saturday over a rally held by white nationalists groups over the removal of Gen. Lee's statue from Emancipation Park in the city's downtown area.
In June, the Charlottesville City Council voted to change the facility's name from Lee Park and another one from Stonewall Jackson Park, in honor of another Confederate general, to Justice Park.
A Charlottesville woman, Heather Heyer, 32, died and 19 others were injured after a car allegedly driven by James Alex Fields Jr. plowed a crowd after police dispersed the rally.
Fields, 20, of Maumee, Ohio, has been charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and failure to stop in an accident that resulted in death, CNN reported.
He remains in jail without bond.
In addition, two Virginia State Police troopers died in a helicopter crash relating to the violence.
Lee V, who works as an athletic director at a Virginia school, told CNN that Saturday's violence was "senseless" and "sad" for his family.
"Those sorts of acts on Saturday, that's just not to be tolerated," he said. "We feel strongly that Gen. Lee would never ever stand for that sort of violence."
In a statement, the Lee family told the cable network the Confederate general "was about duty, honor and country.
"At the end of the Civil War, he implored the nation to come together to heal our wounds and to move forward to become a more unified nation," the statement said.
"He never would have tolerated the hateful words and violent actions of white supremacists, the KKK, or neo-Nazis."
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