Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer (D) has reversed his previous opposition and requested that Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) hold an emergency meeting of the State Assembly to remove the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that was the center of last week's white supremacist protest.

"With the terrorist attack, these monuments were transformed into lightning rods," Signer said in a statement Friday. "We can, and we must, respond by denying the Nazis and the KKK and the so-called alt-right the twisted totem they seek."

"And so for the sake of public safety, public reassurance, to magnify Heather's voice, and to repudiate the pure evil that visited us here, I am calling today for the removal of these Confederate statues from downtown Charlottesville," he said.

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Signer's remarks come six days after the white nationalist rally that protested the City Council's previous decision to remove the statue.

Violent brawls between the white nationalist groups and counterprotesters erupted in Charlottesville, and 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed when a man with alleged white supremacist ties plowed his car into the crowds of people protesting the rally.

Signer originally sided with the minority of Charlottesville's all-Democratic city council opposing the removal of the statue, and penned an op-ed in The Washington Post defending his decision.

"We shouldn’t honor the dishonorable Confederate cause, but we shouldn’t try to erase it, either," he wrote at the time.

In his statement Friday, the mayor called upon the city council to "take concrete steps to memorialize Heather's name and legacy."

Signer also called on Virginia's General Assembly to enact legislation that would allow localities to ban people from open or concealed carrying of firearms at public events considered to carry potential security risks.