Judge dismisses Daughters of Confederacy lawsuit; Chatham Confederate statue will stay down

Who owns a century-old Confederate monument and who has the right to determine its future? That argument, which ended outside the Chatham County Courthouse last month with the statue removed, resumed inside on Monday.

Posted 8:36 p.m. Dec 2, 2019 — Updated 1:45 p.m. Dec 3, 2019

Sarah Krueger, WRAL reporter,

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Jodi Leese Glusco, WRAL.com director of content

PITTSBORO, N.C. — Who owns a century-old Confederate monument and who has the right to determine its future?

That argument, which ended outside the Chatham County Courthouse last month with the statue removed, resumed inside on Monday.

By 4 p.m., Superior Court Judge Susan Bray sided with the county and civil rights groups and dismissed a challenge to the statue's removal filed by the the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

"I think it is implicit in her ruling that the monument is owned by the Daughters of the Confederacy, not the county," said Nick Ellis, who argued that point on behalf of the county.

Chatham County Commissioner Karen Howard said she was relieved, and that she hopes the UDC will make plans for the future of the statue.

"I think storing it indefinitely is not an option," she said.

In August, the county Board of Commissioners voted to have the statue removed.

The county paid $44,000 to a Greensboro company to remove the monument, County Manager Dan LaMontagne said, and is 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 objected to its removal, citing a 2015 state law regarding such monuments on public property.

Chatham County said the statue never belonged to the county. They asked the UDC to decide its fate – so long as that got it off public property. When the UDC failed to act, the county declared the statue a "public trespass" at the beginning of November and brought it down Nov. 19.

In court on Monday, the UDC reiterated its claim that the statue should, by law, be returned to the courthouse grounds where it stood for more than 100 years.

Barbara Pugh, president of the local UDC, declined comment about what the group might do next.

A poll released last month 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.

"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."

Between the county's decision to remove the statue in August and its removal in November, protests for and against the move grew, costing the county more than $140,000 in security expenses, County Manager LaMontagne said.

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