By Randall Rigsbee, Chatham News + Record Staff
The moment, around 2 a.m. last Wednesday morning, a work crew took down the Confederate statue from atop the concrete pedestal on which it has stood at the Historic Chatham County Courthouse since 1907, a crowd of about 20 onlookers in favor of its removal let out a cheer.
But as news of the statue’s fate — county officials say the metal Confederate solider monument was “safely and respectfully” dismantled and its components, statue and pedestal, taken to an unspecified “safe location” — spread throughout the morning, reactions were more mixed.
Turning to social media, some county residents applauded the county’s late-night removal.
“Well done,” posted one supporter on Facebook.
“Looks a whole lot better this morning,” another posted on the social media platform.
Others expressed unhappiness with the statue’s removal, calling it a “disgrace.”
“Sad,” one Facebook post read. “Another piece of history gone.”
“So wrong,” said another. “Embrace history and learn from it.”
Chatham County officials issued a press release at 10:45 p.m. last Tuesday announcing that work on removal had begun. Wednesday at 6:42 a.m., after crews had worked through the night and early morning taking the monument down, county officials issued a follow-up statement announcing the removal was complete.
“The last several months have been a painful time for Chatham County,” Chatham County Board of Commissioners Chairman Mike Dasher said in the press release. “We’ve experienced high emotions, division and even violence which have impacted residents, businesses and the overall feel of our community. What’s clear now is that the overwhelming majority of our residents are eager to move forward.”
“For me,” said Mark Barroso, a Chatham resident supportive of the statue’s removal who spoke with the Chatham News + Record the morning after, “it feels like a new day in Pittsboro.”
“It’s a small step forward in Chatham County becoming the community we want it to be, which is one where everyone is welcome,” said Barroso, who has worked with the activist group Chatham For All in supporting the statue’s removal.
“I feel great about it,” he said.
While Barroso was not among the small crowd gathered near the courthouse in the wee hours Tuesday night and Wednesday morning to witness the divisive monument coming down, in the light of day Wednesday he was there, observing the bare slab of concrete where the monument, hours earlier, had stood.
“It’s interesting,” Barroso said. “My first feeling was it looked kind of empty, and promising all at the same time. Those are contradictory things, but to me it looks like a new start.”
Barroso said his issue with the monument had largely been about its placement at a highly-visible spot on county-owned property..
“It was about prominence, for me,” he said. “What do we want to represent us as a county? I’d like that symbol to be inclusive of all people.”
The statue removal process began just before 11 p.m. with law enforcement closing the northbound lane of 15-501 north of the traffic circle as well as the entrance onto the circle from East Street where trucks, two cranes and other equipment involved in the removal of the monument were located. Police cordoned off the east side of the sidewalk on Hillsboro and the parking lot nearby. Onlookers and media, including television news trucks, were sequestered in the Blair Building parking lot across the street from the courthouse, the statue in view.
Early in the process, a crowd of approximately 50 to 60 people gathered adjacent to the Blair Building to watch.
After approximately two and a half hours, a light rain began to fall, and as a result, many of those gathered to watch decided to leave.
About 20 people stayed to witness the moment the statue was taken down at 2 a.m.
The pedestal on which it had stood was removed around 5:30 a.m. A Greensboro company conducted the work, according to county officials, who said the removal cost paid by Chatham County was $44,000. Chatham County also this year incurred approximately $140,000 in expenses to maintain security around the monument, according to the county and published reports.
Later that morning, local historian and retired history teacher Gene Brooks of Pittsboro had not yet seen for himself the bare spot where the statue had stood, but he’d heard the news of its removal.
Brooks acknowledged the removal of the monument, erected in 1907 to honor Chatham County’s Civil War veterans, was “sad.”
Brooks had joined the Winnie Davis Chapter #259 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in filing a complaint in Superior Court in October, aiming to prevent the county removing the statue. The effort was unsuccessful and on Nov. 13, Superior Court Judge Susan Bray denied a request for an injunction, allowing the county to proceed with removing the monument.
“It’s a sad thing to see,” Brooks said.
The North Carolina Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans later released a statement about the downed monument, saying the organization “is outraged at the latest disturbing action of the Chatham County Board of Commissioners.”
Saying commissioners “manufactured a controversy that was wholly against the will of the people of Chatham County” and invited “agitators to disrupt and harass American Patriots whom are defending the veterans memorial,” the Sons said commissioners had “illegally removed’ the statue “like a thief in the night, undercover of darkness.”
The Sons’ statement notes that the North Carolina United Daughters of the Confederacy “is continuing its law suit against the county and the SCV supports the UDC’s commitment to maintaining the monument at its only legal location, a location this memorial has stood for more than 100 years.”
Chatham For All’s executive committee also released a statement in the aftermath of the statue’s removal.
“Public spaces should uphold public values,” it stated, “and we thank the Chatham County Commissioners for taking this step to symbolically uphold the values of equal protection under the law. We look forward to moving ahead as a loving community, with our neighbors, in this place we all call home.”
According to Chatham For All, more than “1,000 Chatham County residents petitioned, talked with their neighbors, bridged divides, wrote letters, spoke at meetings and respectfully asked our elected leaders to take this legal, long-overdue step to remedy a historical wrong. Supporters included natives and newcomers, folks from all demographics, veterans and civilians, all gathered around this common purpose. We are grateful that so many Chatham County voices have been heard through this process.
“While we recognize this action does not solve wider problems of inequity or systemic injustice,” the Chatham For All statement said, “we deeply appreciate the clear acknowledgment that inequality and justice cannot coexist.”
Mary Nettles, president of the Chatham Community NAACP, said Chatham’s commissioners “have made a very gutsy decision.”
“Chatham County is one of the fastest growing counties in North Carolina,” Nettles told the News + Record. “We have an excellent school system and law enforcement that we admire. Our future is bright. Now for the sake of all of Chatham County, let’s move forward together, not one step back!”
This past Saturday, despite rainy skies, protesters — on both sides of the statue matter — reconvened in Pittsboro, as they have for many weekends.
The Chatham County Sheriff’s Office assisted the Pittsboro Police Department with a protest Saturday morning near the Historic Chatham County Historic. Law enforcement authorities monitored the situation throughout the day. No one was arrested.
The morning after the monument’s removal, all that was left at the place where the monument once stood was part of its base.
Pittsboro police, however, responded to a report of damage to the flagpole across the street from Horton Middle School. A Pittsboro Police Department spokesperson confirmed the report of damage to real property, which was reported at 2:33 a.m.
With the statue and pedestal now stored in an undisclosed location, Barroso said there will likely be discussion about the future use of the space the Confederate monument had occupied.
“I know there will be debate about what to put there, if anything,” Barroso said.
His suggestion: plant a tree.
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The removal of the statue has nothing to do with morals or public values. It is hypocrisy and political. The British might remove all of its statues then? Why not write them a letter? What about the Roman baths in Bath, England? Should all those be removed? The Roman’s were viscious. What about the fact my 10th great grandfather Sir Thomas Wyatt was accused of treason, hanged, drawn, quartered and decapitated long before colonies here? It is such a horrible thing to know that his head was placed on a pole in the Thames River. Why not petition all history to be destroyed? Say, you know how many people were hung right outside the doors of that court house in Pittsboro? Why not knock it down Chatham Commissioners?” Not all blacks were slaves and not all blacks in this country descend from slaves. Also, get this right. The commissioners broke the law, and they know it. This is why the Daughters of the Confederacy are sueing. If you call them racists, well open your eyes and ears. They are not all white members! I have had people tell me I have no right to wear a crucifix. Oh, I get it. No freedom of religion, no freedom of speech, artistic expression. This message is saying artists have no true freedom to express themselves in statues unless it strides with politicians who kiss the feet and asses of other politicians and stand with self righteousness by citing the yellow journalism of the national narrative. That statue was a memorial to the dead, a whisper from history and absolutely none of those who erected it was a racist. The blacks who do stand for history and memorials are not coons, whatever the freak that is. You say only whites owned blacks. Well, wake up! My 3rd great grandfather owned 9 slaves, all he loved and they lived in a Christian household. Guess what, he was not rich at all, no big plantation. One former slave who visited in 1902 the home of my grandmother in celebration of her birth. Why? Well, the former slave woman was loved and walked by her own volition to find the family she loved and see them again as my grandmother was born that day. As for my third great grandfather, he died protecting the South from being totally burned. The Northern liberators cared nothing for the slaves. They rode in and raped a 12 year old slave girl in front of her mistress, and all such cases of cruelty are legally documented and those were punished after the ACW with 10 years per offense. My 3rd great grandfather was not a racist, not all all. From the government’s definition he was a Cherokee Native American. That monument honored him you pompous, arrogant, uninformed misfits! You feed into the national narrative that demonizes the South. You would not know the truth because to know it you would have to possess understanding and goodness. No, you cannot pull it out of your ass. Call my 3rd great grandfather a racist! How dare you! After the ACW, the government committed genocide of the American Indians! Oh, you could not identify properly a Native American if you tried. The Board of Commissioners is a disgrace. Destroying history on the pretentious arrogance of politics. No one defends slavery in this day and age, not the 13th Amendment. Read it carefully. Put your glasses on and thinking caps. That opened hell’s doors, and you all certainly are being puppeted by them. The KKK does not own the Confederate flag. Of course, all of the original slaves should have been left in their country of origin. There are no doubts they would be happier there. Slavery is bad, was always a bad thing. Why do you not ask countries in Latin America who enslaved at greater numbers and lengths of time how will they atone for that sin? Will they destroy the history of it? Why not ask Spain to destroy its history? Let us go farther, what about Biblical history? Destroy it all, and you will be doomed to repeat it. Commissioners, you are not on the side of minorities. There are many who are many feet ahead of puppets. If you care so much why not rescue those in parts of Africa still captured, sold and enslaved today? Hypocrits. You would rather fight over a statue and waste funds and stir up descension. You might have employed other artists to create other statues to tell the story of the South there on its court house grounds, but you succeeded in dividing others and puffing up your chests with hellish egos. Love your neighbor as yourself! You are loving only your arrogance. You have not united anyone. You have contributed to implement more misunderstanding. Sad.
Well, if you’re referring to our relatives, who are no longer living among us; some have who by passing on naturally or otherwise passed on & in their time in history, respectively. However, somehow tying in a demeaning tone towards the role of the Court process & law enforcement and any other officials of Chatham County to British Rule and the very early Roman Empire, as impressively large and vast as it was; due to Roman authority & Roman conquest; then, no, I absolutely do not see the comparison. I think it would be a lot more honorable of you if you actually knew what the statue itself represented instead of how the Court & Commissioners used a Democratic process to deal with the issue presently & yes, also a decision made with respect to it’s history. You mentioned the maker of the statue? I’m sorry, you mentioned it would be disrespectful to the metal artist/sculptor as an artist or that the Courthouse was not respectful of the artisan aspects of the statue? Hmm, well the “Silent Sam” display on the UNC Chapel Hill campus, not far from it’s Old Well didn’t seem to go into all of the detail or into the Court’s decision as somehow being alluded to in your words as a decision that was being “pulled out of their ass.” Maybe just a mere difference of opinion but nonetheless, I thought I would share in appreciation of the Chatham County decision and as a resident. Have a great day!
Good morning, America. What are you going to find to be offended by today?
No history has been erased. There is a place and a time for everything. Do we allow our adversaries after defeating them in conflict to continue to fly their battle flags. There are a lot of places that the monument should be. Historical parks, memorial locations such as graveyards. We are the United States of America, not the Confederate States of America. We had a war to confirm that fact. Instead of a history lesson, spend your time finding a suitable location for the monument that will enhance it’s value as a teaching tool.If you think removing a statue is erasing your culture, heritage, whatever, then you must not have very deep seated roots in this matter.