Almost a year after a unanimous vote to move it, a statue honoring Confederate soldiers at Edenton, N.C.’s waterfront remains in place.
Its move was halted initially by a judge’s order soon after the vote because of an ongoing lawsuit.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy, North Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Colonel William F. Martin Camp 1521 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans —the local unit of the organization — sued the town of Edenton to try to keep the monument in place.
Under North Carolina law, they argued, monuments can’t be moved to places of “lesser prominence.” Monuments that were originally placed outside, for example, can’t be moved into museums.
On the edge of the town limits in Hollowell Park , the beginnings of the statue’s new locations are visible, but now go untouched.
“The town says that they have made earnest preparations, but all you see out there is a seven foot by seven foot hole with four orange cones,” said Rod Phillips, an Edenton resident who is part of a group that regularly protests at the monument for its relocation or removal. “They call that progress. I call it a traffic hazard.”
When the town approved the statue’s relocation, they didn’t give themselves a deadline.
The statue of a single Confederate soldier has become what resident Susan Inglis considers a stain on the otherwise idyllic Edenton’s reputation.
“I am hearing a lot of embarrassment,” Inglis said on WHRO’s Another View. “Embarrassment that it doesn't look good for our town for there to be protests. Embarrassment that it doesn't look good for our town for more and more Confederates to be attracted to the protests and to be coming here because we have a Confederate statue still standing.”
Inglis, like Phillips, has been part of a coalition of residents encouraging leadership to move the monument from its prominent placement downtown. Like many Confederate monuments in the South, Edenton’s monument did not go up until decades after the end of the Civil War.
In 1909, the United Daughters of the Confederacy paid for the monument in front of the town courthouse. In 1961, the monument moved to the waterfront where it now sits in front of town council chambers. “If in 1961, instead of being moved to its current location, it had been taken down altogether, we might be a more integrated town now,” Inglis said. “And to me, it's embarrassing that it did not come down at that point.”
There are legal proceedings that could resolve Edenton’s monument controversy: A Confederate monument case out of Asheville, N.C. was presented to the state’s Supreme Court in October. Opinions from the court can take anywhere from a few months to a year.
In the meantime, Inglis, Phillips and other protesters plan to continue their demonstrations at the waterfront monument.
