A North Carolina appeals court has ruled in a case involving a Confederate monument standing outside a central North Carolina courthouse.

A North Carolina appeals court ruled Tuesday that local leaders who refused calls to remove a Confederate monument from outside a county courthouse acted in a constitutional manner and kept in place the statue at its longtime location in accordance with state law.

The three-judge panel unanimously upheld a trial court judge’s decision to side with Alamance County and its commissioners over the 30 foot (9.1 meter)-tall statue, which features a Confederate infantryman perched at the top. The state NAACP, the Alamance NAACP chapter, and other groups and individuals had sued the county and its leaders in 2021 after the commissioners rejected calls to take the statue down.

Confederate monuments in North Carolina, as elsewhere nationwide, were a frequent focal point for racial inequality protests in the late 2010s, and particularly in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. North Carolina legislators enacted a law in 2015 that limits when an “object of remembrance” such as a military monument can be relocated.

  • MushuChupacabra
    4•9 months ago

    Hypothetically, how large of a vehicle accidentally smashing into the monument , would it take to damage said monument beyond repair?

    • gregorumEnglish
      6•9 months ago

      Problem is, it’s on top of a pedestal that, itself, is on top of a huge stone plinth. You’d have to knock down quite a lot of huge stuff at the base in order to topple the offending statue on top. 

      The best course of action would be to climb up to the top and tie a bunch of rope or chains to the statue, then climb down and tie the ropes and/or chains to a vehicle at the bottom, and simply yank the statue off the top of the pedestal.

      Or just attach explosives to the statue when you climb up to the top and blow it up.  that would certainly be both quicker and increase the likelihood of getting away. Although, if you did get caught, the criminal charges would be far, far worse.

      • FuglyDuckEnglish
        7•9 months ago

        Minor point: when doing this, yanking is how you break your truck. Ease into the tension and pull slow.

        Gunning it with slack in the line will rip the hitch off then back end, probably wreck your frame, etc.

          • FuglyDuckEnglish
            4•9 months ago

            I mean, I’d hate for someone to break their truck while doing a public service.

            • @[email protected]English
              1•9 months ago

              Or you could “borrow” a big ol’ dump truck from a construction site (there are several construction sites in Alamance). If I did this I would back into the statue base to knock it over without destroying the engine, to make it easier to get away. I’m betting that at some of these sites, they might leave the keys in the truck just in case someone forgets theirs.

              • FuglyDuckEnglish
                2•9 months ago

                Eh. A missing or damaged dump truck is gonna get noticed, also back in 2010 or so there was a massive crime wave that chopped construction vehicles so security remains mostly for anyone that had the big stuff.

                Even if the keys are in there most big trucks have gps and geofenced alerts.

      • MushuChupacabra
        5•9 months ago

        Ok, so the statue getting pulled right the fuck off its pedestal would be the most thorough way for the monument to be accidentally destroyed.