When I first moved to Richmond from California, I had no idea Monoument Ave existed.  I was driving around and stumbled on it and was horrified.  The statues are so extremely large and celebrating something so absolutely awful.  They're celebrating traitors to the United States of America.  Those monuments were specifically installed to initimidate the black population and celebrate white supremacy.  Replace them with monuments to things and people that should be revered.  Until you remove those statues, people will continue to refer to 'Monument Ave' as 'Racist Ave'.