A federal lawsuit filed in Columbia, North Carolina is targeting a Confederate monument outside a courthouse that bears an inscription with the line “IN APPRECIATION OF OUR FAITHFUL SLAVES.”
The lawsuit is calling for that portion of the inscription to be removed or covered up.
“I just remember thinking that slaves had to be so-called faithful or they would be punished or even worse,” Sherryreed Robinson, one of the members of the lawsuit, told the New York Times.
“As an adult, the words sitting on the grounds of a courthouse made me question whether Blacks could really receive justice there.”
Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that a portion of the lawsuit could move forward. Tyrrell County officials have been resistant to taking action themselves, citing state monument protection laws that, they say, bars them from making any changes to the monument.
The challenge to the statue — which sits on the lawn of the Tyrrell County Courthouse — comes at a time when President Donald Trump and his administration are restoring Confederate names and monuments after many were demolished and destroyed during or in response to racial justice protests in 2020.
In June, Trump demanded that the military restore Confederate names that had been previously removed from military bases. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered that a Confederate sculpture removed from Arlington National Cemetery be re-installed.
The lawsuit in North Carolina was launched last year — before Trump returned to office — by the Concerned Citizens of Tyrrell County, which is made up primarily of older Black residents.
The filing argues that the “faithful slave” portion of its inscription constitutes racial discrimination in government speech, which the litigants argue is a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. It calls for the county to remove or cover the message.
Tyrrell County officials moved to have the lawsuit dismissed in 2024, arguing that county officials cannot change the monument based on a state law limiting how an “object of remembrance” on state property can be changed or moved.
“The North Carolina Court of Appeals has ruled that county commissioners are bound by this statute, and that commissioners who are bound by this statute are not motivated by a discriminatory intent,” the motion reads. “Tyrrell County should not be subject to liability based on its decision to follow state law.”
The statue was one of many Confederate monuments erected during the Jim Crow era in the wake of the U.S. Civil War. The Tyrell Monument Association, founded by former Confederate Army lieutenant colonel William Fessenden Beasley, gifted the monument to the county. It has stood on the courthouse lawn since 1902.
It depicts a Confederate soldier standing on a base that includes a bust of General Robert E Lee. There are inscriptions on each of the base’s four sides, one of which includes the reference to “faithful slaves.”
Mark Snell Brickhouse, whose great-great-grandfather’s name is one of many Confederates’ etched on the monument, said he visits the monument and the family cemetery because it honors his family, but he told the Times he agrees that the “faithful slave” portion should be covered.
“I love the statue because it honors my family members,” Brickhouse, 72, told the paper. “But I can see how the words are offensive to some people. I think the statue should stay because it reflects our history, but those words should be covered.”
The Concerned Citizens of Tyrell County tried in the 1990’s to have the statue removed completely, but have since changed their course, only asking for the reference to slaves to be removed or covered.
Ian Mance, a lawyer with Emancipate North Carolina, a racial justice and advocacy group, told the Times that the statue outside the Tyrrell County Courthouse is the only known Confederate monument that directly endorses or shows an appreciation for, slavery.
“This is the only monument of its kind at a courthouse with that language of appreciation, or an endorsement, of slavery on it,” he said. “You are talking about families who have been here since before the Civil War. For them, there is this feeling that this monument is offering commentary about their families.”
According to Mance, the lawsuit is not seeking damages.
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