NAACP seeks removal of Confederate statue

Paul B. Johnson, The High Point Enterprise, N.C.
·2 min read

Aug. 17—RANDOLPH COUNTY — The Asheboro/Randolph County chapter of the NAACP is renewing the effort to have a 110-year-old Confederate monument removed from in front of the Randolph County Courthouse in downtown Asheboro.

Leaders of the NAACP branch have set a press conference for 7 p.m. tonight at the George Washington Carver Community Enrichment Center at 950 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Asheboro. The NAACP is seeking to have the monument, which has a statue of a Confederate soldier and the dates of the Civil War, moved to a museum.

Chapter President Clyde Foust said the branch is researching the ownership of the monument to determine how to proceed.

The Asheboro/Randolph County chapter of the NAACP has made other efforts to have the monument in Asheboro removed, including holding an August 2017 vigil at the monument. But Foust told The High Point Enterprise that NAACP supporters hope for a different result this time after doing extensive research about the monument's ties to the imposition and legacy of slavery.

The NAACP branch will unveil a series of videos today that it produced about the history of the monument, as well as how the county with its Quaker heritage was split during the Civil War between loyalists to the Union and backers of the Confederacy.

The bronze statue of a Confederate soldier was sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to memorialize Civil War veterans from Randolph County. The statue stands atop a nearly 26-foot-high pedestal and has a more than 9-foot-high granite base. The statue was dedicated Sept. 2, 1911.

Foust told The Enterprise that the NAACP branch's research has linked the sponsors of the monument's placement to white supremacy and apologists for slavery.

Randolph County Board of Commissioners Chairman Darrell Frye told The Enterprise that he intends to attend the NAACP presentation. The longtime Republican commissioner said he will attend not as an endorsement of the removal effort, but to gather information.The Robert E. Lee Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy No. 324 reached an agreement last year with the city of Lexington to move a Confederate monument from Main Street to a site outside of the city limits.

pjohnson@hpenews.com — 336-888-3528 — @HPEpaul