North Carolina will keep 3 Confederate monuments at Capitol

RALEIGH, N.C. — Three Confederate monuments will remain on the North Carolina Capitol grounds, but with newly added context about slavery and civil rights. That’s the decision from a state historical panel, two days after protesters tore down another rebel statue at the state’s flagship university.

The state Historical Commission was responding Wednesday to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s request nearly a year ago to move the monuments to a nearby battlefield.

The commission voted 10-1 to reinterpret the three monuments with adjacent signs about “the consequences of slavery” and the “subsequent oppressive subjugation of African-American people.” It urged construction of a memorial to black citizens, which has been discussed for years, as soon as possible. The group of academics, amateur historians and preservationists also acknowledged that the monuments erected decades after the Civil War near the old 1840 Capitol are imbalanced toward the Civil War and the Confederacy.

Cooper responded with a statement decrying a 2015 law passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature that sharply restricts where state and local government officials can relocate such memorials and all but bars their permanent removal. He also said the toppling of the Confederate statue known as “Silent Sam” on Monday night at the University of North Carolina was an example of what happens when people feel their leaders won’t act on their concerns.

The commission’s vote came about 36 hours after the “Silent Sam” statue was toppled on UNC’s Chapel Hill campus. The bronze figure of an anonymous soldier was pulled down from its stone pedestal by protesters who used banners to mask their action.

The statue had been under constant, costly police surveillance after being vandalized in recent months. Many students, faculty and alumni argued that “Silent Sam” symbolized racism and asked officials to take it down.