NC has sixth-most Confederate monuments in US
A court ruled this week that a Confederate monument in Louisburg will remain at a cemetery after being relocated there several years ago.
The monument is one of dozens in the state honoring confederate leaders and soldiers.
North Carolina has the sixth-most Confederate memorials in the nation.
Several people WRAL News spoke with did not know two Confederate monuments are around the North Carolina Capitol building:
- A statue of Confederate Colonel and former Gov. Zebulon Vance
- Monument to Civil War Captain and North Carolina legislator Samuel A'Court Ashe
“I am from Ohio, originally, and North Carolina kind of seems more like a southern state to me, so, no, that’s not super surprising,” one man said.
“You [have] to preserve history, but it’s definitely … I feel not in the right way [with] these types of monuments because I feel like it disregards everything that happened,” a woman said.
The state has 173 Confederate memorials, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. It includes monuments, roads, schools and buildings named for Confederate leaders.
Dr. Karen Cox, a historian at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said while there are only 78 physical monuments honoring the Confederacy in the state – where they’re located is strategic - around city centers.
“It is about preserving this idea of white control of a community,” Cox said. “That’s what makes [it] problematic in this particular space.”
That’s where this monument in Louisburg used to be before being relocated to a cemetery, one of 10 have been relocated.
“You can find the history of these monuments without the monuments actually standing there,” Cox said.
Over the last several years, 24 monuments have been removed. However, many remain, and the debate continues about whether or not they should be standing still.
