Burke County Residents Sign Letter Asking NC Legislators to Scrap Racist State Statute
In response to an op-ed from Rep. Hugh Blackwell, Burke Coalition for Reconciliation pens a letter to the editor, pleading for officials to undo NC General Statute 100-2.1.
MORGANTON, North Carolina—Many communities are working to remove or relocate the roughly 894 Confederate monuments that remain standing across the United States, a movement galvanized by George Floyd’s death in 2020.
However, a North Carolina state statute put in place in 2015 is preventing those efforts.
Challenging it, a recent op-ed from a state representative published in Burke County’s self-declared “hyper-local” weekly paper is being leveraged by hundreds of local activists to highlight what is believed to be a racist law hindering attempts to remove a Confederate monument from downtown Morganton.
The Perils of Invoking the Name of MLK
In the July 15th edition of The Paper, District 86 State Representative Hugh Blackwell wrote an article calling for more “open and respectful dialogue” between groups that disagree. He invoked the name of Martin Luther King Jr. in calling for “change through non-violence activism.”
A perilous act considering Blackwell’s affiliation with the GOP, a party whose leaders are actively trying to criminalize conversations about race, slavery, Jim Crow-era lynchings, and racial inequalities in school classrooms.
Given how much the Republican Party, in its present form, stands in stark contrast with the majority of Reverend King’s radical and egalitarian vision for the United States, some are sure to find Blackwell’s reference to the civil rights leaders grating or tone-deaf.
Having reached quasi-hagiographic status in the American pantheon, despite J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI’s fierce hostility toward King during the 1950 and 1960s, it has become customary for people with wide-ranging political views to quote MLK. He has been canonized, after all.
However, this often results in a more milquetoast or cherry-picked version of the great orator when he is quoted by more timid voices who are largely at variance with his overall philosophy.
This can be especially frustrating for those who share Reverend King’s more revolutionary and prophetic politics, a legacy continued by people like Bryan Stevenson, Reverend William Barber II, Dorceta Taylor, Cornel West, Lateefah Simon, and Bernice King (MLK’s daughter), to name a few.
A Community Response to Rep. Blackwell
Nonetheless, this op-ed gave the leadership of Burke Coalition for Reconciliation (BCfR) a chance to further raise racial awareness among Burke County residents. A grassroots group consisting of community members and local activists focused on addressing racial injustices( in a spirit of love), BCfR responded with a letter of its own.
Published in the July 29th edition of The Paper, this community response used Blackwell’s message to amplify continued calls for the removal of the Confederate monument from Downtown Morganton. Viewing it as a symbol of white supremacy and hate, BCfR has been on a two-and-a-half-year mission pleading with local officials to take down the Confederate statue elevated next to the Historic Burke County Courthouse.
“We share Rep. Blackwell’s reverence for Dr. King’s words, actions, and example. Rep. Blackwell wrote, ‘Dr. King never hid from uncomfortable discussions,’” the letter starts out, “and in this spirit we respond to Rep. Blackwell’s invitation to civil conversation about laws and statutes that impact the teaching and representation of history and, ultimately, the well-being of our community.”
The letter discusses the distinction King makes between “just” and “unjust” laws, citing NC General Statute 100-2.1 as a clearly “unjust law.”
“As many know, most Confederate monuments were erected 50 years after the Civil War to intimidate blacks during the Jim Crow era,” the letter continues. “Yet, on our courthouse lawn and central gathering place, we continue to have a Confederate monument and statue honoring this war.”
Furthermore, the Confederate monument in Morganton was the precise place where in 1927 “the bloody and mutilated body of Broadus Miller was laid after he was hunted down and murdered without trial after the largest manhunt in western North Carolina history,” BCfR says.
It’s hardly a coincidence such a brutal act of hate is directly connected to a symbol of white supremacy.
Originally seen by some as a rather innocuous law pertaining to monuments on public property, many North Carolinians quickly realized NC General Statute 100-2.1. was a move to prevent the removal of Confederate monuments from prominent places in communities across the Tar Heel state.
Painfully, it was passed in 2015, several weeks following a massacre committed by a white supremacist at Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Citing the Charleston Massacre, the letter writers ask, “What was the motivation for our elected leaders to secure these monuments in our communities? Do we, too, have to wait for a tragedy until there is action to have them removed?”
They conclude with an unabashed plea for justice and leadership:
“We ask for our state leaders, our county leaders, our city leaders, our business leaders, and all citizens to join us in doing away with unjust laws like General Statute 100–2.1. Join us in racial reconciliation. Join us in pro-actively building a community of love.”
This letter to the editor contains the names of 313 co-signers. That is not an insignificant number of signers for a heavily Republican county that saw 31,019 voters throw support behind Donald Trump in 2020, 69.5% of the votes cast.
Keep in mind, Burke County’s population hovers around 88,000 people, some roughly 17,600 who live within Morganton’s municipal boundaries.
It’s worth noting, many of these signers are, in fact, leaders in our community—religious, business, and government heads willing to draw a line in the sand, inviting otherwise inactive voices to participate in these efforts.
A Challenge to Our Luke-Warm Neighbors
So while Morganton leans a bit more forward-looking (regarding diversity and inclusion) than its more status-quo-oriented neighbors and elected officials in Burke County, potential social and economic consequences remain for those who vocally oppose the continued presence of the Confederate monument.
Some of our neighbors maintain a mistaken belief that the monument is merely about “heritage, not hate,” a legacy of pseudo-history perpetuated by the Daughters of the Confederacy since at least the 1890s, and commonly referred to as the Lost Cause mythology among historians and scholars.
It remains to be seen what impact this public plea will have. And whether it will spur meaningful change in our corner of Appalachia.
But let us hope it pricks the hearts of our community members who, while not opposed to BCfR’s work, currently feel civic energies would be better spent elsewhere.
For those who feel this way, I challenge you to share that opinion with one of the more than 5,700 Black or African American members of our community who are made to feel less than whenever they visit Morganton’s historic downtown (a few blocks from City Hall).
And then actively listen to what their pain has to teach.