Confederate monument in Sylva. Photo from N.C. Civil War Monuments.
Originally published in The Sylva Herald on June 18, 2020.
He stands sentinel over Sylva as silent as a tomb, but the Confederate soldier statue on the Courthouse steps has set tongues to wagging and fingers to typing.
Dueling petitions about the monument have sprung up on change.org, a website used to draw support and attention to causes of all kinds.
On Sunday, June 7, a Savannah woman started a petition she titled “Remove Confederate statue in front of Jackson County Library.” After receiving what she termed “violent threats,” she changed the name behind the petition from her own name to “Jackson County Citizen.”
The following day, Monday, June 8, a rival petition appeared on the site, “I want to save the Jackson County Monument of the Civil War” by Nathan Murray of Sylva.
As of 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, June 17, “remove” was leading “save” with 4,221 signatures to 2,923.
Dedicated on Sept. 18, 1915, the copper statue depicts a Civil War soldier holding his rifle in front of him and a bedroll lashed to his back in honor of “Our heroes of the Confederacy.”
The monument also features a Confederate flag in bas-relief and a Confederate States of America design between the dates of the Civil War (1861-1865).
The inscription on the monument reads as follows:
“To our valiant fathers, champions of reconciliation with justice, of union with manhood, of peace with honor; they fought with faithfulness, labored with cheerfulness, and suffered in silence. To our heroic mothers, spartan in devotion, teuton in sacrifice, in patience superior to either and in modesty and grace, matchless among womankind.”
Questioning of the statue’s presence was reignited in 2017 after the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, who was struck by a car at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The statue controversy has resurfaced once again following the death of Minneapolis, Minnesota man George Floyd while under arrest and the resulting protests spearheaded by the Black Lives Matter movement.
There have been three protests in Sylva, most recently on Saturday. Each drew several hundred people, and a cadre of people guarding the statue, most connected to the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Removing or relocating the statue would not be as easy as backing up a crane and hoisting it.
The North Carolina legislature passed a law in 2015 requiring approval by the state Historical Commission before a public monument can be removed. The law also banned the transfer of monuments to museums and proposed that they are returned to the initial location within 60
days of its removal. This can only happen, however, for maintenance or public safety reasons. Because of this, Gov. Roy Cooper was unable to move five Confederate monuments from the Capitol grounds to Bentonville Battlefield in 2018.
Removal or relocation is not the only threat facing the Courthouse monument.
The most recent wave of protests has seen protesters tear down or deface monuments across the world.
Confederate President Jefferson Davis was toppled in Richmond, Virginia, and General Robert E. Lee was felled in Montgomery, Alabama.
The statue of former slave trader Edward Colston was removed and thrown into Bristol Harbor in Bristol, England. Christopher Columbus was beheaded in Boston and knocked down in Richmond and Minneapolis.
