Monument Avenue is a tree-lined grassy mall dividing the eastbound and westbound traffic in Richmond, Virginia, originally named for its emblematic complex of structures honoring those who fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War.

[5] Four of the bronze statues representing J. E. B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis and Matthew Fontaine Maury were removed from their memorial pedestals amidst civil unrest in July 2020.

[7] In July 2020, Richmond mayor Levar Stoney directed removal of the remaining Confederate monuments on city-owned land including J.E.B.

[11] The American Planning Association selected Monument Avenue as one of the "10 Great Streets in America for 2007" based upon the corridor's historical residential design and craftsmanship, diversity of land uses, the integration of multiple forms of transportation, and the commitment of the community to preserve its legacy.

City plans as early as 1887 show the proposed site, a circle of land, just past the end of West Franklin Street, a premier uptown residential avenue at the time.

The architects who built on Monument Avenue practiced in the region and nationally, and included the firms of John Russell Pope, William Bottomley, Duncan Lee, Marcellus Wright, Claude Howell, Henry Baskervill, D. Wiley Anderson and Albert Huntt.

Speculative builders such as W. J. Payne, Harvey C. Brown and the Davis Brothers bought lots and built many houses to sell to those not designing with an architect.

In 1969, a group was incorporated called The Residents and Associates for the Preservation of Monument Avenue, led by Zayde Rennolds Dotts (Mrs. Walter Dotts, Jr.),[15] granddaughter of Beulah and John Kerr Branch, a banker who had commissioned a Jacobean mansion on Monument Avenue in 1914 by the firm of John Russell Pope.

[16][17] In August 2017, following the Unite the Right rally and a vehicle attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney announced that the city's Monument Avenue commission would look at providing contextual markers around the Confederate monuments as an option for dealing with the issues raised by statues honoring men who fought to preserve slavery and fracture the Union.

Ashe stands, racket in hand, on a pedestal bearing the Biblical quote: “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”[13] The Confederate memorials on Monument Avenue have been a source of controversy from time to time since they were first built.

[31] Opponents have pointed to their roots in the "Lost Cause" and Virginia's "Massive Resistance" to racial integration of public schools to argue that the statues symbolize white supremacy and should be removed or revised.

[32] Proponents of preservation recognize the monuments as veterans' memorials erected to commemorate the hundreds of thousands of Confederate soldiers and citizens who died fighting to defend Richmond during the Civil War.

[33] The removal movement gained momentum following a similar controversy with Charlottesville, Virginia's Robert E. Lee statue and the subsequent events of the "Unite The Right" rally on August 11–12, 2017.

In June 2020, Governor Ralph Northam announced he had been working for a full year on plans to remove the Lee monument from the avenue.

[41] The City of Richmond began work to remove the city-controlled statues, beginning with the Stonewall Jackson monument, on July 1, 2020.

Richmond recently transferred ownership of the fallen memorials to the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia; it is now up to the institution to decide what to do with them.

In the fall of 2023, the Jefferson Davis statue will travel to Los Angeles, where it will be exhibited as part of a display of toppled Confederate art works.