The town of Edenton is facing a lawsuit after attempting to resolve a years-long dispute over the relocation of a Confederate monument behind closed doors.
A complaint filed in state Superior Court on Jan. 3 seeks to block a deal that would transfer ownership of the monument – which has sat on Edenton’s downtown waterfront since 1961 – from the town to Chowan County.
The Confederate monument is set to be moved to its original location at the Chowan County Courthouse in Edenton, which sits less than half a mile up the road from its current site. In return, the United Daughters of Confederacy and two other neo-Confederate groups agreed to drop an earlier pending lawsuit over a previous plan to move the monument to a nearby park.
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The Southern Coalition for Social Justice filed the new suit on behalf of five plaintiffs who have advocated for the removal of the monument. Each of the plaintiffs either live or work in Edenton, a small, majority-Black town on the Albemarle Sound in the northeastern part of the state.
This three-way deal, according to the complaint, was negotiated during several closed session meetings that spanned from August to November of last year with the justification of “maintaining attorney-client privilege.”
According to the state’s open meetings law, public bodies like town councils are allowed to go into closed session to discuss legal matters with an attorney retained by that public body. However, those public bodies are not allowed to discuss “general policy matters” in closed session, nor are they allowed to go into closed session simply because an attorney is present.
Plaintiff attorney Jake Sussman told Carolina Public Press that the attorney-client privilege exception was inappropriately used by the Edenton Town Council in this case.
For example, the town could have gone into closed session to discuss the pending litigation brought by the United Daughters of Confederacy. However, the new lawsuit argues that any dealmaking with the Chowan County Board of Commissioners, which is also a public body, needed to be done in public.
Complicating the situation, removing or relocating a Confederate monument in North Carolina can be difficult, thanks in large part to a 2015 state law. The law stipulates that any monument that is to be relocated must be moved to a site of “similar prominence, honor, visibility, availability and access.”
Confederate monument site controversy
According to data maintained by the Southern Poverty Law Center, 76 Confederate monuments are still standing in North Carolina. Local governments have been stymied by lawsuits by neo-Confederate groups when they’ve tried to remove or relocate them. Conversely, some lawsuits against local governments seeking to remove these monuments have failed.
The Edenton monument at the center of controversy was first erected in 1909 at the Chowan County Courthouse. It’s 26 feet tall and features a bronze statue of a non-descript Confederate soldier atop its base. In 1961, the monument was moved from the courthouse to Edenton’s South Broad Street near the waterfront.
Local leaders first weighed the possibility of relocating the monument in a “Statement of Solidarity” adopted by the Town Council in June 2020 amid a nationwide reckoning over systemic racism.
The next year, a “Human Relations Commission” formed by the town recommended the monument be moved. Throughout 2022, the Town Council considered possible relocation sites as well as a possible sale to Chowan County, which did not come to fruition. Meanwhile, a local group of activists calling themselves the “Move the Monument Coalition” regularly protested and advocated for removal.
In March 2023, the Town Council voted unanimously to relocate the monument to Hollowell Park in Edenton.
Days later, a Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing the move because of a civil action filed by three neo-Confederate groups.
The future of Edenton’s Confederate monument appeared to be in limbo for most of 2024, until the town revealed its surprise agreement with Chowan County and the United Daughters of the Confederacy in a joint special meeting with the Chowan County Board of Commissioners in late November.
Rod Phillips, one of the plaintiffs in the new lawsuit and a member of the Move the Monument Coalition, was disappointed in how the town handled situation.
“Removing the public’s input and voice from something so important to the folks who live and work in Edenton is no way to do business or run a local government,” said Phillips in a press release from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.
“We believe that this and every Confederate monument is a symbol of white supremacy. I know not everyone agrees with that, but I don’t think anyone would agree that it’s OK for elected officials to hide behind closed doors while making important decisions.
“That’s not how a representative government is supposed to work.”
Remaining ‘hopeful’
The complaint lists several other claims unrelated to open meetings law that make arguments against the legality of the town’s action.
For instance, the Edenton lawsuit argues that the deal to give ownership of the monument to Chowan County is not legally valid because state law “does not authorize real or personal property to be conveyed as a gift from a unit of local government to another.”
Because the Memorandum of Understanding between Edenton and Chowan County does not explicitly state the monument is to be exchanged, leased or sold, the complaint argues that the deal is unlawful and should be considered void.
Edenton Town Manager Corey Goodman told CPP in an email that he wouldn’t comment on the lawsuit before speaking with the town attorney.
“I was and remain hopeful that the Memorandum of Understanding unanimously approved by the Town Council and the Board of County Commissioners will be endorsed by the court and bring closure to this issue once carried out,” he added.
Notably, the lawsuit opposing the deal does not suggest an alternate location for the monument. Instead, it focuses primarily on the alleged unlawful dealings of the Edenton Town Council.
If a court were to rule in the plaintiff’s favor and place an injunction on the relocation to the Chowan County Courthouse, the question of where the Confederate monument should be instead would remain unresolved.
“There’s a whole set of conversations that need to continue to happen in Edenton and other places,” Sussman said. “This lawsuit really focuses on these kinds of conversations having to happen in the sunlight.”
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