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A multiracial lawsuit demanding the removal of a Confederate monument in Iredell County, North Carolina, offers a historic family twist. One of the residents supporting the move is a descendant of Robert E. Lee. The Rev. Robert Wright "Rob" Lee IV of Statesville, a fourth great-nephew of the Confederacy's commanding general, is among a group of residents and organizations calling on Iredell .
The Confederate Monument outside the historic Iredell County Courthouse.
The Iredell County Commissioners voted to remove the monument in March, but then reconsidered, prompting the lawsuit.
“A glorified symbol of White Supremacy stands guard over the Iredell County Government Center, a place where the government is supposed to serve all of Iredell County’s residents,” said Rev. Curtis Johnson, President of the South Iredell NAACP, in a statement on the suit Tuesday. “That is totally unacceptable, as the Commissioners recognized in their March Resolution. The Monument must go . . . peacefully, but it must go. The time is long overdue.”
Plaintiffs in the suit include the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, the NAACP’s Statesville and South Iredell Branches and the Iredell Clergy for Healing and Justice, an alliance of Iredell County religious leaders. The suit argues that the statue threatens public safety and is in violation of the North Carolina const
By Ben Gibson | Statesville Record & Landmark
The battle over the Iredell County Confederate Memorial is in a new phase after a group of plaintiffs filed a lawsuit Tuesday demanding the county remove the statue.
In the press release, the group said the Iredell County Commissioners vote to begin the removal process â before seemingly backtracking â was one of the reasons the lawsuit was filed. In fact, on March 3 of this year, the Iredell County Board of Commissioners voted to remove the Confederate Monument, admitting in their Resolution that the monument occupied a prominent position in front of the justice system during a period of Jim Crow laws, segregation and endemic discrimination against African-Americans, and that, for Black residents, the monument continues to serve as a reminder of policies of oppression, having their roots in the system of slavery that existed in the Confederate States of America.