Let local democracy, not state, decide who we honor (NC)

Aug. 20, 2015 @ 06:32 PM
W. Fitzhugh Brundage

The recently adopted law protecting historical monuments in the state is a hasty and unprecedented power grab by the state legislature ... Why shouldn’t communities be the arbiters of the monuments that grace their public spaces? And why should monuments be considered sacrosanct? ... Aside from the monuments on the state capitol grounds and in a few other locales, very few of the monuments in North Carolina were subsidized by taxpayer dollars ... It is .. worth noting that many Confederate monuments in the state have been moved several times for various reasons and with no public controversy ... As a historian, I am sympathetic to calls to preserve the state’s monuments and I would prefer to have more monuments added to rather than subtracted from the North Carolina landscape. But I also believe that, in keeping with the tradition of local commemoration, each community in North Carolina should make decisions about its own commemorative landscape. If a community wants to replace a World War I memorial that intentionally excluded the names of blacks who served in the war, citizens should not have to navigate the corridors of the state legislature to do so ...

http://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/x1845464240/Let-local-democracy-not-state-decide-who-we-honor