NC Mayor: Removing Confederate Statue Protects City From Potential Violence

Winston-Salem officials have given the owners of a downtown Confederate monument until the end of the month to move it or face legal action. This comes days after the statue was vandalized.  

City Attorney Angela Carmon sent a letter to officials with the United Daughters of the Confederacy asking them to relocate the statue to historic Salem Cemetery. It would be near where the bodies of more than 30 Confederate soldiers rest.

Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines says recent vandalism and the potential for the monument to spark violent confrontations prompted the decision.

“We believe that moving the statue to a more appropriate location would be the right thing to do at this point," he says. "And the city attorney has the opinion that we can declare this a public nuisance because of the fact of the potential for violence, and we decided to move forward with that.”

State law makes it difficult to remove monuments on public grounds. But this one is on a corner of what was once the site of the old county courthouse, and city officials maintain it is now private property.

The statue was vandalized in 2017 and last week vandals struck again, writing “cowards and traitors” on its base.

When contacted, officials with the United Daughters of the Confederacy said they "currently have received no communication from the Mayor's office." They say their position remains as it always has been, that the city needs to follow North Carolina law.