North Carolina residents sue to have Confederate monument to ‘faithful slaves’ removed

Originally Published: 23 MAY 24 10:21 ET

By Justin Gamble, CNN

(CNN) — Residents of a small county in North Carolina filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday to have a Confederate-era monument to “faithful slaves” removed from outside the county courthouse.

The monument in Tyrrell County, North Carolina, features a Confederate soldier on top of a pedestal with the inscription “In appreciation of our faithful slaves” written underneath.

The lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina, was brought by a group called The Concerned Citizens of Tyrrell County. The plaintiffs claim the public monument is in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because it “expresses a racially discriminatory message.”

The inscription on the statue promotes a “pro-slavery message and a pro-Confederate message,” according to the lawsuit.

Jaelyn Miller, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told CNN he feels county commissioners have a responsibility to ensure that racist messages are not being displayed to the Black community.

“This is sort of the only monument in the country on public land that textually endorses slavery,” Miller said.

Ian Mance, another attorney for the plaintiffs, said the historical record is clear that the monument was meant to send a message.

“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,” he said.

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

The lawsuit also claims that the county’s display of the message has “incite(d) racial hostility” and endangers the plaintiffs’ safety.

The monument has been standing since 1902 and the lawsuit is the latest move in a decades-long battle to have it removed from courthouse grounds.

Mance said the plaintiffs have been attending commission meetings since the 1990s and holding demonstrations since 2019.

“Litigation was our last resort,” Sherryreed Robinson, one of the plaintiffs said in a news release announcing the suit. “We have peacefully voiced our objections for years. This monument says our ancestors preferred slavery to freedom. That’s a false and hurtful message for the government to communicate.”

CNN has reached out to Tyrrell County Commissioners for comment.

The-CNN-Wire
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