After Dismantling Confederate Statues, Devon Henry Launches Charity to Raise $13M For More Dismantling

The Black contractor hired to remove Confederate monuments is giving new meaning to the Confederate flag’s 13 stars by assigning a charity to each of the “13 Stars” NFT Art Collectibles.

Devon Henry said yes to a job that no other contractor had the courage to accept. The story of Henry’s role will likely be told in history books– as depicted in the recent front page feature of The New York Times. Since 2020, Henry and his construction teams have been removing over 23 Confederate statues across the former Confederate South.

Henry is now repurposing this history into a charitable CryptoFederacy project that highlights 13 star causes and changemakers via the 13 Stars NFT Art Collection that drops on Juneteenth 2022 at www.CryptoFederacy.com via a PRNewswire press release.

“The task of dismantling these statues has literally been monumental,” states Devon Henry, who faced harassment and even death threats, as a result of answering the call to “re”mantle history. “It’s very humbling to be the one who fulfills a 131-year prophecy. But that’s not enough. I feel a responsibility to use these deconstructed pieces of our past to construct a better tomorrow.” 

The prophecy Henry references is that of John Mitchell, Jr., the editor of the Black newspaper, The Richmond Planet.  In 1890, when the Robert E. Lee statue was erected on Monument Avenue in Richmond Virginia, Mitchell foretold of a Black man one day taking down the statue. “He put up the Lee monument, and should the time come, will be there to take it down,” Mitchell wrote.

CryptoFederacy’s 13 Stars NFT Collection, represents the thirteen stars on the Confederate flag and will drop on the 157th anniversary of Juneteenth– a Federal U.S. Holiday that commemorates the emancipation of enslaved Americans, and marks when the last enslaved people in the U.S. were officially informed they were free– following the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate states in April 1865.

The CryptoFederacy project will mint an inaugural collection of 13 NFTs (Non-fungible tokens) that represent each dismantled statues. Henry aspired to sell these NFTs and raise $1 million dollars for 13 different charitable causes that address societal issues that stem from the ideals and actions reinforced by the Confederate Generals whose statues were removed.

Henry and his CryptoFederacy team are finalizing partnerships with established nonprofits and planning launch events in New York, Richmond, D.C. and Los Angeles. Attendees will be able to meet the CryptoFederacy team, view the NFT artwork, meet the artist, explore physical pieces of the dismantled confederate statues and view framed professional photographs of the behind-the-scenes history-making moments from the statue removal process. 

Henry hopes that impassioned individuals and foundations will feel compelled to be part of this historic reclamation of ideology, by collecting one of the 13 exclusive pieces of artwork–which will help raise awareness for the charities the NFT artwork represents.  As the CryptoFederacy NFT community grows, the team has plans to follow the inaugural NFT collection with a 10,000-piece CrazyStats NFT collection– and appeal to an even wider audience.