EDENTON, N.C. (WBTV) - A Confederate monument was removed from a downtown plaza in one North Carolina town this past weekend.
The monument -- which stood on in Edenton -- was taken down just before midnight on Saturday, Aug. 30, according to sister-station .
The tall, stone memorial has the words “Our Confederate Dead” inscribed on its base, along with the years 1861-1865, which marked the Civil War period.
The monument also has “C.S.A.” near its top -- an abbreviation for the Confederate States of America. It is topped off with a statue of a Civil War soldier, and was located on a brick plaza with a cannon and flags on each of the four corners. The flags represented the United States, North Carolina, the United Kingdom, and the confederacy.
The Confederate flag flown on the plaza was the of the confederacy -- not the red battle flag commonly thought of as “the Confederate” or “Rebel” flag.
According to the town of Edenton, the monument will eventually be moved about down the road to Veterans Memorial Park, behind the Chowan County Courthouse.
In addition to the monument being moved, the brick plaza was also taken up and was replaced with sod.
Removal of the monument was met with mixed reaction from the Edenton community.
“They’re changing names of streets. They’re changing monuments,” one Edenton resident told WITN. “They’re trying to change history and I’m not in favor of it at all.”
Another resident told WITN he believed opposition to the monument’s removal was “rooted in ignorance.”
“I just kind of feel bad that they don’t understand the point of the statue being taken down,” he said.
The mayor of Edenton said in a that the monument situation was “deeply emotional and challenging” to handle.
“This issue has been deeply emotional and challenging for the Town Council and many of our citizens,” the statement read in part. “The volume and intensity of social media commentary underscore how strongly people feel on both sides.”
Also in the statement, the mayor refuted the idea that taking the statue off South Broad Street erased history.
“To those who claim we are ‘erasing history:’ that is a misinformed view,” the statement said. “The monument is not being removed -- it is being relocated. In doing so, we are not erasing history; we are preserving and protecting it.”
The mayor said that even with the debate going on across town, the community remained peaceful and mostly respectful.
“I pray that we can now come together, heal, and move forward in a spirit of unity and mutual respect,” he said to end the two-page statement. “May God bless our Town, our County, our State, and our Country.”
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