WUNC: “A 30-foot statue of a Confederate soldier will continue to stand in front of the Alamance County courthouse in downtown Graham, after a judge ruled that state law prohibits the removal of the monument.
The state chapter of the NAACP filed a lawsuit last year to have it removed, but Alamance County leaders want it to stay.
“This was an issue of law not fact, such that there really wasn’t a need for a trial,” said Alamance head attorney Rik Stevens. “We’re glad that the court saw it our way.”
The statue was dedicated in 1914, and has been the subject of protests for years in downtown Graham, with demonstrators arguing the monument and others like it across North Carolina are inextricably tied to racism and white supremacy.
The state NAACP was represented by attorneys from Wilmer-Hale out of Washington, D.C. They said the unique history of this monument makes the application of the North Carolina Monuments Law to it, unconstitutional.
“We think, with all due respect, the judge made some mistakes in his ruling,” said Ron Machen, a partner with Wilmer-Hale and the lead trial attorney in NAACP v. Alamance County. “We think any law, which the judge relied on, the Monuments Law in North Carolina that allows a symbol of race and oppression, and divisiveness and racism to remain outside the county owned courthouse is unconstitutional under the North Carolina constitution.””