Clinton, NC, removes Confederate statue after it was toppled overnight
A bronze Confederate statue outside the Sampson County courthouse in Clinton, found bent and teetering on its pedestal Sunday morning, has been removed, according to the county sheriff’s office.
The statue was vandalized Saturday night, according to the Sampson Independent.
The Sampson sheriff’s department is investigating, Lt. Marcus Smith said Sunday in an email to The News & Observer. “For now, the statue had to be removed due to damage received during the vandalism,” he wrote.
Debate over what to do with the Confederate monument in Clinton, about 60 miles south of Raleigh, has intensified as other towns and cities have decided to relocate statues honoring the Confederacy and those who fought for it. The Clinton City Council adopted a resolution unanimously last week that asks the Sampson County board of commissioners to explore options for the monument’s relocation.
The “Fame” Confederate monument in Salisbury was taken down last week, the Associated Press reported, after a unanimous city council vote to remove it and allow the Daughters of the Confederacy to relocate it.
Gov. Roy Cooper ordered the removal of three Confederate monuments from the state Capitol grounds last month after protesters tore two bronze figures from one of monuments, dragging one of the figures through downtown Raleigh streets and hanging the other from a streetlight, The News & Observer reported.
Two Confederate monuments were removed from downtown Wilmington last month, McClatchy News reported. A Confederate monument was removed from Battle Park in Rocky Mount last month.
Monuments around the state have become a focus of protests after police killed George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in Minneapolis.
Clinton City Council member Darue Bryant organized a protest at the monument last Monday, he said, after Sampson commissioners did not put the relocation issue on their agenda. The Sampson board of commissioners chairman could not be reached Sunday.
A change.org petition Bryant sponsored calling for the statue’s removal had more than 2,700 signatures as of Sunday afternoon.
Bryant said in an interview Sunday that the monument had not been defaced in the past, and no one had tried to tear it down.
The city council wanted to address the issue diplomatically, Bryant said. Council members saw what happened with the bronze figure in Raleigh being dragged, and didn’t want that to happen in Clinton. The Sampson County History Museum is willing to take the monument, he said.
“We want to deal with this as carefully as possible,” he said.
The monument was dedicated on May 12, 1916, according to the UNC digital library. Part of the inscription reads that it honors Confederate soldiers “who bore the flag of a nation’s trust, and fell in a cause, though lost, still just.”
People of color should not have to enter a courthouse that has a monument outside that says “I fought so you wouldn’t have any rights,” Bryant said.
“At the end of the day, we just want to see peace in the community,” he said. “It’s not about us trying to be antagonistic. We’re not trying to exercise lawlessness. We do believe in justice.”