Shaw University hosts conference on Confederate monument impacts

Dozens of people, including local leaders, gathered at Shaw University Thursday for an all-day conference on the removal of Confederate monuments. The Undue Harm: Undoing the Legacy of Confederate Monuments event displayed individuals' feelings about these monuments and why many want them gone.

For years across the state, people have witnessed various Confederate monuments taken down from downtown Raleigh and Durham to Enfield, Wilmington, Chatham County, and even the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's campus.

However, the removals are not without pushback. Some argue that the monuments represent history, and others feel very differently.

"It makes you feel sick. It makes you have tightness in your stomach," said Dr. Ronda Taylor Bullock, keynote speaker.

Bullock was one of the speakers at the conference hosted by the NC Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Criminal Justice System (NC CRED).

She co-founded a non-profit that provides anti-racism training and says Confederate monuments are a constant reminder of white supremacy.

"As a society, if we're going to build monuments, build them around values that are healthy," said Bullock.

Another keynote speaker, Tafeni English-Relf, is the state director of the Alabama Office of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The group began tracking Confederate memorials in 2015.

"It always instilled this uneasiness, this fear, like this is not a place that you should be, you do not belong here," said English-Relf.

WRAL spoke with English-Relf with SPLC about the group's mission to remove these monuments; she says she is hopeful about the process and that this will make everyone feel welcome.

"The future will be all of us. We all are deserving and worthy of what the ideals of this country are and the values," said English-refl. "If we're standing on equality and justice, that must apply to everyone."

The Southern Poverty Law Center's latest report shows 48 Confederate monuments were removed last year- 7 were in North Carolina.