Hours after DeKalb County workers hoisted a massive Confederate monument off its base and removed it from the south side of the old DeKalb County Courthouse, state Judge Dax Lopez took a moment to walk outside and contemplate what he called “a view free of hate.”

Lopez—who became the second Latino trial court judge in Georgia history when he was appointed to the bench in 2011—said the 30-foot-tall obelisk “is something I have walked by every day for 10 years at the courthouse.”