North Carolina Appeals Court Upholds Ruling That Kept Confederate Monument in Place

A North Carolina appeals court ruled Tuesday that local leaders who refused calls to remove a Confederate monument from outside a county courthouse acted in a constitutional manner and kept in place the statue at its longtime location in accordance with state law.

The three-judge panel unanimously upheld a trial court judge’s decision to side with Alamance County and its commissioners over the 30 foot (9.1 meter)-tall statue, which features a Confederate infantryman perched at the top. The state NAACP, the Alamance NAACP chapter, and other groups and individuals had sued the county and its leaders in 2021 after the commissioners rejected calls to take the statue down.

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The lawsuit’s plaintiffs said the county and the commissioners violated the state constitution by exercising discriminatory intent to protect a symbol of white supremacy outside the historic Alamance County Courthouse, thus creating the appearance of racial prejudice there.

In the opinion, Court of Appeals Chief Judge Chris Dillon wrote that the county commissioners lacked authority under the 2015 law to remove the statue. He also said the county manager’s email to commissioners in June 2020, in which he asked them to consider removing the monument out of concern for protesters’ safety, did not qualify for an exception to that law.

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