Removing our Lewis & Clark statues felt like an afterthought. It should be an awakening.

For years before it was recently removed, the local debate about the Lewis & Clark statue on West Main Street in Charlottesville centered around whether or not Sacajawea's crouched posture was demeaning and underplayed her importance to the expedition, a debate that resulted in the placement of a contextual plaque in 2009 that was dedicated by Sacajawea's descendants. I was actually there and gave Sacajawea's great-granddaughter a pack of C&O Restaurant matches so she could perform a "smudging" ceremony on the plaque with burning sage.

"This is so people will respect it," she said, "and so it will always have positive energy."

Back then, the idea of removing the statue never even crossed anyone's mind, and while City Council took up the Lewis & Clark statue debate and flew in Sacajawea's descendants from Idaho to try to correct some history, Charlottesville slept soundly as the tulips once again bloomed beneath the statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson just blocks away. Howeve…