He said there has been no significant movement that he was aware of pertaining to moving the statue to a park with green space, which is what the board had agreed upon. Nobody is calling their hand, Locklear noted, after board members said they were going to move it. It’s not a high-priority item at this moment for the board.” “Now it’s kind of out of sight and out of mind. “Nobody’s making any noises about it publicly, or at least to the commission during public comments (at board meetings),” he continued. The Robeson County Board of Commissioners “kind of took it off the front burner when they agreed to move it, and they’ve not done a lot since then,” Locklear said. Not only are Confederate statues and flags known to make Blacks feel unsafe and uncomfortable in their own country, they also are known to have a menacing impact on other minority groups and scores of whites who sympathize with their African-American brethren. In the process, Confederate statues and monuments across the country were defaced and toppled in effigy. The nationwide “Black Lives Matter” campaign against violence and systemic racism toward Black people regularly drew protesters together, demonstrating and speaking out against police killings of African Americans and other broad issues like police brutality, racial profiling and racial inequality. In September 2017, someone used spray paint to vandalize three sides of the Lumberton-based statue, the Robesonian reported. Like others across the nation, the statue had been a target of critics and vandals during the protests of the “Black Lives Matter” movement. “But there was gonna be a committee, if you will, of some folks from the city of Lumberton and county to try to determine if there was a place within the city that would be a more appropriate place.” “I don’t think there has been a lot of discussion,” he said. Locklear said there had been “a movement by various parties to have the commissioners take a stand regarding moving it. ![]() “The bottom line: It’s kind of on the backburner now,” he said. Gary Locklear, an assistant attorney with Robeson County, said Monday that he didn’t think there had been much discussion on the Confederate soldier statue since the vote to remove it took place. I’m sure there’s folks today who don’t want to see it.” “I was sickened every day to have to look at that statue. “I feel bad every time I go to the courthouse,” he said. Jones, whose wife Ruby Jones now serves as president of the Unified Robeson Chapter of the NAACP, said he had worked for a number of years at the courthouse as a tax appraiser and tax collector. Stephens did not immediately reply to phone messages left Monday and Tuesday. “I was appalled by the fact that she wouldn’t address it,” he said. Jones, a former president of the Robeson County Black Caucus and former vice president of the Robeson County NAACP, said he was disappointed by Stephens’ reply. Stephens served as the chairwoman of the board at the time of the vote. She said, ‘We had voted it down, but I had to get the funds.’ Now she’s saying she ain’t got the funds.” “I had spoken with Commissioner (Wixie) Stephens. “I think they just voted just to quieten the lip service down,” he surmised. He said on Monday he did not understand why it continues to remain on site after the board voted to take it down last year. Pastor Thomas Jones of the Jones Chapel Missionary Baptist Church of Lumberton said last week that he went before the county Board of Commissioners as far back as the mid-1990s requesting that the statue be removed from its place outside the courthouse. ![]() In April 2022, about two dozen members of the Robeson County Bar Association stood in support of the removal of the Confederate monument during a regular meeting of the county Board of Commissioners. “The Confederate statue that stands at the entrance of the Robeson County Courthouse is a perfect reminder of the inequality in Robeson County, standing high and mighty at the people’s house that is funded by taxpayers’ money,” the Unified Robeson NAACP branch said at the time. In February 2022, the Unified Robeson NAACP branch in Robeson County called the statue a “symbol of racism” in a Facebook post seeking to have it removed. It has remained on the same spot for decades. 21, 2022, the board voted 6-2 to eventually take the contentious statue down and move it to a park with green space.Īccording to online sources, the statue was dedicated in 1907 and sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. LUMBERTON – Nine months after the eight-member Robeson County Board of Commissioners voted to remove the marble statue from the front entrance to the Robeson County Courthouse, the Confederate soldier remains standing guard at the same site. In April 2022, a group of the Robeson County Bar Association voiced approval to remove the Robeson County Courthouse Confederate monument.
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