Confederate monuments to stay
N.C. panel wants reinterpretation for three statues
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 is 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 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 actions that toppled Silent Sam bear witness to the strong feelings many North Carolinians have about Confederate monuments. I don’t agree with or condone the way that monument came down, but protesters concluded that their leaders would not — could not — act on the frustration and pain it caused,” Cooper said.
Frank Powell with the Sons of Confederate Veterans in North Carolina couldn’t say whether the group would support the “contextualizing” of the monuments. Commissioners repeatedly emphasized that slavery caused the Civil War, but Powell said that oversimplifies what were its many causes.
Still, Powell said, the commission’s decision was “the best outcome we could have hoped for under the circumstances.”
The monuments on the Capitol grounds include the Capitol Confederate Monument, dedicated in May 1895; the Henry Lawson Wyatt Monument, dedicated in June 1912; and the North Carolina Confederacy Monument, dedicated in June 1914.