Protesters argue whether Pittsboro Confederate monument should come down
A Confederate monument in the center of Pittsboro is the center of an emotional argument: Should it stay or go? Groups of demonstrators gathered around the statue Saturday, standing on opposite sides of the street.
Posted — UpdatedGroups of demonstrators gathered around the statue Saturday, standing on opposite sides of the street.
“He represents the men who fought and died for this country to be free,” Barry Isenhour said at the demonstrations.
Stephanie Terry disagrees.
“It was a traumatic part of our history,” she said.
The Confederate monument has been outside the Chatham County courthouse for more than a century.
It's one of several statues across the country to have its future debated. Some see Confederate monuments as a symbol of heritage and ancestry, while others see them as artifacts of slavery and oppression.
The Silent Sam statue on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus was toppled in August 2018, and a UNC Board of Governors task force will determine where it will be moved.
The debate Saturday required barricades and a number of officers in the center of town.
Isenhour said the monument pays respect to American veterans.
“The statue, it’s our ancestors,” he said. “I am from North Carolina. These are our soldiers. We honor veterans – that is what this is all about.”
But it reminds Terry of something much different.
“It represented a time and a place in our country when our people were enslaved, our people were oppressed, our people were not treated freely with respect,” she said.
Chatham County Commissioners have placed a deadline of the monument’s future.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy, the group that donated the statue in 1907, have until Oct. 1 to present a plan for the monument.
If nothing is agreed on by Nov. 1, commissioners say they will make plans to remove it.
“Under state law, they cannot take it down,” Isenhour said.
When commissioners voted 4-1 on the plan in August, some people shouted, some were forcibly removed from the meeting room, and some applauded.
Commissioners had been in talks with the United Daughters of the Confederacy to re-purpose the statue as a monument to all veterans, but the UDC backed out of those talks.
If the statue does go, it may not go quietly.
“We can figure out how to come together,” Terry said.
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