A Confederate monument in Elizabeth City slated for removal has no place to go.
Pasquotank County will even bear the cost of moving it for anyone who wants it.
So far, no takers.
The North Carolina Division of United Daughters of the Confederacy who presented the statue to the county in 1911 won’t take it back. The Museum of the Albemarle located a few blocks away will not take it, either. And no cemeteries have stepped forward to set it among their gravestones.
One private landowner has expressed interest, but not committed.
The 30-foot granite statue may go to a storage site at a cost of about $28,000, said county manager Sparty Hammett. That means the county may have to pay to move it twice, a last resort, he said. The statue cost $2,650 to put up 109 years ago, according to an online state document.
The county special projects committee plans to meet soon and will make a recommendation to the full Pasquotank County Board of Commissioners for a final decision likely in February.
“It will be moved eventually,” he said.
Monuments across the country were removed or torn down after racial tensions spiked following a string of police brutality incidents involving minorities. Some local officials, NAACP leaders and residents wanted the Elizabeth City statue gone.
County commissioners voted 4-3 on July 13 to remove it.
The monument represents slavery and white supremacy, said Pasquotank County commissioner Cecil Perry. His constituents are angry it has not been moved yet, he said.
“I think we’ve waited long enough,” Perry said. “I’m trying to be patient, but that does not belong there.”
A petition circulating online that supports removal has collected 2,725 signatures in the town of about 18,000.
“These statues are a stain and painful reminder of racial oppression and hatred endured by people of color and should not be used as symbols,” according to the petition.
A North Carolina law passed in 2015 prohibits removal of an “object of remembrance” except if it presents a threat to public safety.
While peace has prevailed so far in Elizabeth City, violent protests are possible, Hammett said. Other places in North Carolina have successfully used the public safety exception, he said.
At least 24 Confederate monuments in the state have been removed or have been slated for removal since May, including the one in Elizabeth City, according to a December report by public radio station WUNC. North Carolina is second behind the 40 statues removed in Virginia, the report said.
Another 76 Confederate monuments in the state remain, according to WUNC and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Meanwhile, the 6-foot-6 Confederate soldier stands atop a tall marble column between the county and federal courthouses. His face is turned southward over Main Street, rifle at his side, visible to passersby.
“Our Heroes” is inscribed on the base below a Confederate battle flag and the dates 1861 and 1865.
The state and local organizations of the Sons of Confederate Veterans filed an injunction to stop its removal and appealed to the North Carolina Historic Commission. The commission decided in November the two groups lacked standing to appeal the county board’s decision.
The SCV groups plan to appeal the commission’s ruling by next week, likely to Pasquotank County Superior Court, said Tennessee attorney Edward Phillips, who represents the plaintiffs.
The monument does not pose a public threat and it is against the law to remove it, he said by phone Thursday. It is not a symbol of hate, he said.
Confederate soldiers were often buried where they were killed in unmarked graves.
“This is a memorial to the dead,” he said. “They did not know where their loved ones were buried. That’s why they put these monuments up.”
Phillips supports leaving the monument where it is and putting up other memorials nearby honoring other perspectives, he said. The county should take a “moderate, measured approach,” he said.
Jeff Hampton, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com
