GRAHAM, N.C. — The lawsuit against a central North Carolina county’s choice to keep up its government-owned Confederate monument is over. The people and civil rights groups who sued chose not to ask the state Supreme Court to review lower court decisions.
It was confirmed in March by the state Court of Appeals that a lower court was right to side with Alamance County and its commissioners over the 30-foot (9.1-meter) tall monument outside the historic Alamance County Courthouse. After being asked to take it down several times, the state NAACP, the Alamance NAACP chapter, and other people and groups sued in 2021.
Appellate rules say that the time to ask the state Supreme Court to review the case has passed. Marissa Wenzel, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said Thursday that after the March decision, the plaintiffs “recognized the low probability of this case proceeding to a full trial.” She also confirmed that there would be no appeal.
The memorial was dedicated in 1914 and has a statue of a Confederate infantryman on top. It was the center of local protests against racial inequality in 2020, after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.
The three judges on the Court of Appeals all agreed that the county had done the right thing by keeping the statue where it had been for a long time. This was because of a law that was passed in 2015 that limits when a “object of remembrance” can be moved.
Ernest Lewis Jr., a leader in the NAACP in Alamance County, told WGHP-TV that his group is now telling people to vote to make a difference.
Wenzel said in a written statement Thursday, “We have chosen to focus our efforts instead on giving our clients the tools they need to fight for change through grassroots political processes.”
There are still more cases going on about what should happen to Confederate monuments in public places in the state, like in Tyrrell County and the city of Asheville.
