North Carolina sues to take down Confederate monument honoring loyal slaves

Residents in Tyrrell County, North Carolina, filed a federal lawsuit to remove a Confederate monument “in appreciation of our faithful slaves.”

The Concerned Citizens of Tyrrell County filed the lawsuit in the Eastern District of North Carolina on grounds that the monument violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because it “expresses a racially discriminatory message.” The monument depicts a Confederate soldier on top of a pedestal with the inscription “In appreciation of our faithful slaves.”

“This is sort of the only monument in the country on public land that textually endorses slavery,” Jaelyn Miller, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told CNN.

The lawsuit says the monument endorsees a “pro-slavery message and a pro-Confederate message.” In turn, the groups said the monument “incite(d) racial hostility” and endangers the plaintiffs’ safety in Tyrrell County.

The lawsuit also argues that the monument infers the notion that “Black people who were enslaved in Tyrrell County preferred their slavery to freedom” and “communicates, on behalf of local government, the idea that Tyrrell’s institutions regard Black people’s rightful place as one of subservience and obedience.”

The monument was placed outside of the Tyrrell County courthouse in 1902. Ian Mance, another attorney for the group, said the location of the monument was intentional.

“It was put up in the front yard of what was soon to be the Tyrrell County Courthouse, which opened a few months later, to communicate to people that members of the Black community could not expect to get justice inside of that courthouse,” Mance said.

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Earlier this month, a North Carolina appeals court unanimously upheld a ruling that kept a Confederate monument outside a different courthouse in place. A 2015 state law places limits on when an “object of remembrance” like a military monument can be relocated.

“Indeed, in many courthouses and other government buildings across our State and nation, there are depictions of historical individuals who held certain views in their time many today would find offensive,” Court of Appeals Chief Judge Chris Dillon wrote in the majority opinion.