The Hillsborough Board of Commissioners voted on Monday night to remove lettering from the Orange County Historical Museum that dedicates the building as a “Confederate Memorial,” and instead add a new sign on the property.
“That building, when it was dedicated as a memorial, was a whites-only library,” said Commissioner Jenn Weaver. “That is not a small thing.”
Weaver wasn’t the only commissioner to speak out Monday night in favor of removing the controversial 81-year-old lettering from the museum building.
Mayor Pro Tem Brian J. Lowen was also resolute.
“The same way that we can honor the Confederacy, we need to honor other things,” he said.
Weaver later noted that this was the board’s fourth meeting on the subject.
“We were all feeling comfortable with the fact that we’d talked to a lot of people, and knew what direction we were headed,” said Weaver. “But we wanted to give folks another opportunity to speak out on it, because we know there are some strong emotions about it.”
Many Orange County residents who spoke at the meeting during the public comments portion were against removing the lettering.
“They see this as erasing history, or being disrespectful to Confederate veterans,” Weaver said Tuesday.
As she did Monday night, Weaver noted that the Daughters of the Confederacy funded the building at 201 North Churton Street during the height of Jim Crow. She said it’s time to tell the building’s real story.
“The original whitewash, to me, is just putting up the lettering,” said Weaver, “and not telling anything else of the voices who were excluded from large swaths of society and public spaces.”
The Board of Commissioners’ application for removal of the lettering and the installation of a sign will go to the town’s Historic District Commission, which will consider its compliance with regulations regarding appearance, placement, and materials.
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