Black Lives Matter demonstrators face off against Confederate statue defenders in NC
A Saturday protest in Alamance County remained mostly peaceful, despite agitation on both sides, as Black Lives Matter demonstrators faced off with defenders of Confederate statues in the shadow of Graham’s monument.
Several hundred Black Lives Matter marchers descended on downtown Graham around 12:30 p.m. Many had walked 1 1/2 miles from Burlington to downtown Graham in a “March for Justice & Community.”
A smaller group of about 60 people holding Confederate flags and other symbols of the old South awaited them.
The event marked one of the larger recent protests in the city, as local officials have taken steps to quell such demonstrations. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the ACLU and the ACLU of North Carolina, and the Lockamy Law Firm got a temporary restraining order against the city last week in a lawsuit over its protest rules.
On Friday, Graham Mayor Jerry Peterman issued a message declaring a state of emergency covering a portion of the downtown area “due to an imminent threat of widespread or severe damage, injury, loss of life.”
On Saturday, there was a significant showing of law enforcement, including officers from Graham, the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office, the Burlington Police Department and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, for the march and protests.
Alamance County has a “challenging history,” said Azurre Roberson, with Alamance Agents for Change. The group organized March for Justice with the Alamance Alliance for Justice and Just 4 the Next Generation.
Roberson mentioned the 1870 lynching of Black Graham leader Wyatt Outlaw; the oppression and killing of indigenous peoples; the county’s treatment of Latinx people; and its policing policies.
”We need a paradigm shift, people,” she said.
The downtown Graham site has been the focus of multiple demonstrations since 2015, but calls to remove the statue dedicated in 1914 have grown in the last month following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.
As organizers and others spoke Saturday, many in the crowd shouted jeers at the statue defenders.
Keeping groups separate
Law enforcement kept the two factions in separate areas of the square, where they yelled at each other through a line of local police and Charlotte crowd-control officers armed with bikes. Some people attempted to approach the statue, but Graham police turned them away.
Shortly after 1 p.m., the statue defenders, who were standing in Sesquicentennial Park, at the northwest corner of the courthouse square, rang the old courthouse bell for an hour trying to drown out the march’s speakers. A Graham police officer, asked why they didn’t stop the bell-ringers, said he couldn’t stop one group from making noise and let the other continue to make noise.
Under the mayor’s order, it was prohibited to bring weapons and dangerous substances into the zoned-off area. It also is unlawful to “disobey any barriers, warning signs or other structures that restrict vehicular or pedestrian travel due to road closure, detours and/or hazardous conditions” in the marked-off zone.
Tensions remained high as the marchers and counter-protesters left the downtown area. Police were seen responding to a lot just east of the courthouse on North Marshall Street around 3:30 p.m., where many of the marchers and counterprotesters had parked.
West of the courthouse, a group of young Black men exchanged words with Alamance County Sheriff’s deputies and Graham police officers. The situation resolved itself when a member of the group urged his friends to move on.
The Alamance County Sheriff’s Office arrested two people, Graham Police Department Lt. Daniel Sisk said. Details about the arrests were not immediately available, he said.
Graham officers allowed reporters in an area where the marchers gathered, but prevented them from walking in the area where the Confederate statue defenders stood.
Mayors in the towns of Burlington and Mebane, members of the Alamance-Burlington school board, Elon University’s president, business people and civil rights groups have asked the county to relocate the statue, but the county has no plans to move it.
Peterman, the mayor, shut down protest permits with a June 25 amendment to the city’s State of Emergency, The News & Observer reported. The ban was lifted five days later, but the ACLU and others filed a federal lawsuit July 3 seeking a temporary restraining order on behalf of the Alamance NAACP and eight people who wanted to protest in Graham.
The temporary restraining order was granted Monday, The News & Observer reported.
This story was originally published July 11, 2020 at 6:50 PM.
