The Confederate monument that was removed from downtown Winston-Salem five years ago will soon find a new home 40 miles south of the city.
For more than a century, a sculpture of a Confederate soldier in uniform holding a rifle with its shoulder stock resting on the ground, stood across from an old Winston-Salem courthouse. At its unveiling ceremony in 1905, the keynote speaker was Alfred Waddell, one of the leaders of the Wilmington Massacre of 1898. That led to the deaths of dozens of Black men, and the destruction of their homes and businesses.
Mayor Allen Joines says after speaking with several African American community leaders, his decision to remove the statue became clear.
"So, that kind of registered with me and I got to thinking every time I walked by if I was an African American walking on 4th street, you know, the main street, one of the top blocks in the city, and I had to look up and see that in my city, I think I would probably feel bad as well," he says.
The statue was dismantled five years ago after being vandalized twice and has remained in storage at an undisclosed location ever since. Valor Memorial Park just west of Denton, North Carolina has agreed to take in the monument.
That move came after the mayor’s first choice, Salem Cemetery, fell through.
"They had agreed to let us put the statue there," says Joines. "There’s an area in the cemetery that is the home of 36 Confederate soldier graves. And I thought, that’s just beautiful. We’ll put the monument right there in that little area. It’s a very prominent area in the cemetery right just across really from RJR kind of monuments."
Joines says the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Durham rejected that proposal. He says the relocation to Denton will likely take place within the next couple of months. The delivery cost to the city is estimated to be roughly $27,000.