The state division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy announced Thursday that it is appealing to the state Supreme Court the recent decision of the N.C. Court of Appeals that dismissed the UDC bid to have a statue of a Confederate soldier returned to the corner of Liberty and Fourth streets in downtown Winston-Salem.
Sara Powell, president of the UDC s North Carolina Division, issued a statement saying that both the split decision on the appeals court and the UDC s interpretation of the state law on monuments give grounds for the appeal. We believe that the General Assembly intended for memorials to be protected, and we wish to see the law enforced, Powell said.
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The Confederate monument, as it once stood in downtown Winston-Salem.
As Policy Watch reported last year, the statue stood on private property – an apartment building that was once the county courthouse. Since it wasn’t on city or state owned land, it wasn’t covered by a 2015 state law that was used to prevented the removal of such monuments in downtown Raleigh and at UNC-Chapel Hill. Those statues were themselves brought down by protesters and their remnants removed for public safety reasons.
Both the city and the owner of the apartment building wanted the statue removed. Mayor Allen Joines proposed moving the statue to nearby Salem Cemetery, which is home to 36 Confederate graves. The United Daughters of the Confederacy sued to prevent the removal, but failed in court. The statue was removed in March of last year.