Chatham Confederate monument gone, but controversy remains

The century-old Confederate monument outside the Chatham County Courthouse was removed overnight, with crews taking apart the base early Wednesday.

Posted 3:54 a.m. Nov 20, 2019 — Updated 1:45 p.m. Dec 3, 2019

PITTSBORO, N.C. — The century-old Confederate monument outside the Chatham County Courthouse was taken down overnight, with crews removing the base early Wednesday.

About 50 people who supported and opposed the monument gathered in downtown Pittsboro as the work began Tuesday night. The statue was taken off its base around 2 a.m. Wednesday, and the base was removed around 5:30 a.m.

The monument sparked frequent protests ever since the county Board of Commissioners voted in August to remove it.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Robert Butler said as crews worked overnight. “A statue’s never hurt a soul, just like a grave memorial. Do they hurt anybody?”

Anderson Ritter disagreed.

“It represents stuff that never really should have happened, and it kind of memorializes and makes it seem good,” Ritter said. “I and other people don’t agree with that.”

A poll released Wednesday by Elon University found that most North Carolina residents think Confederate monuments should stay on public property. Of the respondents, 65 percent said the monuments should stay on public property, while 25 percent said removing them doesn't help race relations.

Butler and other monument supporters returned to the courthouse Wednesday afternoon, flying Confederate flags next to the empty space where the statue had stood for more than 100 years.

"It’s a memorial to dead soldiers," Butler said. "I know it stands for other things for other people, but for the ones that stand out here and support it, it’s for the soldiers who didn’t get to come home."

But others in downtown Pittsboro supported the removal.

"The courthouse looks better without it. I'm glad it's gone," said Hal Sanders, who grew up in Pittsboro but now lives in Hillsborough. "As I got older, as I understood what it was about. It stood for keeping a person a slave, and that kind of bothered me."

"I think there are more appropriate places if people do want to honor fallen Confederate soldiers – cemeteries are great, museums are great – but outside of a courthouse is not an appropriate place for a statue like that," Mary Beth Miller said. "For me, being a local, it feels like a step forward."

Confederate monument is removed from downtown Pittsboro

The county paid $44,000 to a Greensboro company to remove the monument, County Manager Dan LaMontagne said, and it's paying $300 a month to store the statue and pedestal in a Greensboro warehouse until the United Daughters of the Confederacy comes up with a plan for its future.

The local UDC chapter erected the monument on the Chatham County courthouse grounds in 1907, and the group filed suit last month to prevent its removal under a 2015 state law regarding such monuments on public property.

But county officials said the UDC still owns the monument, and they declared it a "public trespass" at the beginning of November because the organization hadn't taken any steps to remove it after the commissioners said in August that they wanted it gone.

The UDC lawsuit is still pending, but county officials said they think the chances that they would have to put the monument back up outside the courthouse are slim.

LaMontagne said the county wanted to remove the monument as quickly as possible after a court order denying the UDC an injunction in the case was signed.

"Over the past three months, protests continued to escalate week by week, growing larger and more violent. Chatham County has incurred more than $140,000 related to security measures as of November 18, 2019, in response to these protests," he said in a statement.

Several people have been arrested at Saturday protests at the monument in recent weeks.

Butler predicted larger, more frequent protests will occur now that the monument is gone.

"There will be a lot of protests now, I can tell you that," he said. "Imagine if you tragically lost a loved one and somebody goes up and just kicks over their headstone. It’s very emotional. ... We're not giving up."

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