Appeals Court: North Carolina Confederate Statue Stays Put

The race to eradicate the nation’s Civil War heritage took at least a temporary blow on Tuesday. The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that it was lawful for Alamance County officials to refuse to remove a Confederate monument outside of the local courthouse.

This despite shrill calls from the NAACP and others to tear down the statue commemorating the sacrifices of soldiers a century and a half ago.

The court determined that local officials were barred from removing the heritage site by the North Carolina Monument Protection Law. And the decision was clear and concise.

The appeals court wrote, “Under the Monument Protection Law, the County has no authority to move the Monument. Regardless of some commission members’ comments or misunderstandings of their legal ability to move the Monument, the rule of law does not change.”

The unanimous ruling added that local officials, even if they wanted to, could not relocate the monument under current state law.

The plaintiffs unsuccessfully argued that the monument should be removed due to an exception in the statute. This carveout allowed for relocation if the memorial “poses a threat to public safety because of an unsafe or dangerous condition.”

The NAACP noted that a county manager in 2020 expressed safety concerns over violent protests in the area and across the nation.

But the state exception specifically stipulated the warning must come from a building inspector, meaning there were structural safety issues. The appeals court ruled that the county manager who cautioned of public unrest was not a “similar official” to a building inspector.

Confederate monuments in the state and elsewhere were targeted by Black Lives Matter protesters following the death of George Floyd in police custody in 2020.

Demonstrators used the outrage over the Minnesota man’s death to call for erasing the historical markers from public settings. The state and local NAACP along with other left-wing groups and individuals sued Alamance County and its leadership when it refused to take the statute down.

But wise North Carolina legislators years before realized this possibility and took action.

In 2015, lawmakers passed a statute stipulating exactly when historical monuments could be removed. They were designated as “objects of remembrance” and could only be relocated due to safety issues.

The monument was dedicated at the courthouse in 1914.