Edenton’s Monument Wars Continue

After a group of eastern North Carolina residents sued elected officials in the town of Edenton and Chowan County over a controversial vote to relocate a Confederate monument, the local governing boards took a mulligan.

The residents had accused the boards of hammering out details of the relocation in secret in violation of the state’s open meetings law. So the town and the county terminated the agreement they’d reached in November, held several public hearings with open comment periods, and ultimately arrived at the same decision: The statue of the seven-foot-tall, bronze gun-wielding Confederate soldier installed in the early 1900s is to be moved from the prominent Edenton waterfront property where it now stands to the county courthouse grounds.

This fight over the fate of the statue has been going on since 2020 when protests erupted across the country after the murder of George Floyd. In the South, Confederate monuments became a flashpoint for honoring people who fought against the abolishment of slavery. Amid this unrest, Edenton committed to becoming “a more just and equitable community” and its town council voted in 2022 to move the statue from its downtown spot without specifying where.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy, the North Carolina Division of The Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., and the Colonel William F. Martin Camp 1521 of The Sons of Confederate Veterans sued Edenton, arguing the monument represented part of the town’s history.

In an attempt to settle that case, Edenton and county elected officials created a plan that transfers ownership of the monument to the county so it can be relocated to courthouse grounds. That’s when the group of eastern North Carolina residents entered the fray.

And last week on behalf of that group, the Southern Coalition amended their initial lawsuit, taking into account the mulligan vote. The “public ratification of the earlier, unlawful deliberation and decision,” according to the amended suit, “failed to ‘cleanse’ or ‘cure’ its violation”  and should be considered “null and void.” The residents continue to contend that moving the monument to the courthouse grounds violates the state constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.

The amended suit, filed in Chowan County Superior Court on April 3, provides a more detailed history of the monument, including its ties to a prominent Bertie County judge “described by historians as a ‘white supremacy’ orator.” The group of residents have asked a judge to halt the relocation while their case wends through the courts. 

“This lawsuit seeks transparency and accountability,” said Jake Sussman, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice’s chief counsel for justice system reform. “It also lays bare the deeply troubling origin story of this monument, whose impact remains deeply embedded in public memory.”