‘A disturbing history’: New group to review Charlotte street names, Confederate statues
Amid a nationwide movement to remove monuments of the Confederacy, Charlotte is forming a commission to tackle the symbols of its troubling history on race.
Created by Mayor Vi Lyles through a memorandum, the 15-member commission will review monuments and street names tied to the Confederacy and the legacy of Jim Crow. It will then make recommendations for how to properly contextualize the history around them by December.
Sparked by the protests in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, statues of historical figures in the U.S. ranging from Christopher Columbus to Jefferson Davis have been either torn down by demonstrators or taken down.
In Charlotte and nearby towns, several Confederate monuments remain.
In the past several weeks, Charlotte City Council members have heard from citizens asking for monuments to be removed, and streets like Stonewall to be renamed, said council member Larken Egleston.
Recently, Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board members announced plans to change the name of Zebulon E. Vance High School, which is named after a Confederate general.
Nearby cities and towns have had similar debates.
On Wednesday, Gaston County announced that one of its commissioners will form a group to discuss the future of a Confederate statue in front of the county’s courthouse, following protests. The day before, dozens of protesters stood outside the Gaston County Courthouse, some demanding commissioners remove a Confederate statue in front of the building. Others argued for it to remain.
Egleston said he brought the idea for a commission in Charlotte to Lyles.
Advocacy groups like the NAACP say they have been trying to get these markers changed for years, and fear the new group could get in the way of real change protesters are seeking.
But Egleston said the protests have created a public appetite for addressing the issue.
“It is a shame that it takes a tragedy sometimes to create an environment where you can actually achieve the change that a lot of us, I think, have thought was appropriate for some time,” he said. “There is an opportunity to do things that should’ve been done a long time ago.”
Elevating voices
Charlotte City Council will appoint 10 members of the commission, and Lyles will appoint the other five, Egleston said.
In addition to making recommendations, it would also look into who has authority over the monuments, Egleston said. A 2015 state law prohibits an “object of remembrance” from being removed, with few exceptions.
He said he would like to include people in the commission who participated in the civil rights movement, as well as historians with expertise in this subject.
“(We’re) putting together a group of folks whose voices should be louder,” he said, “instead of council making some knee-jerk, arbitrary decision about what we think is best.”
Corine Mack, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg branch of the NAACP, said she thinks members of the Black community should be in charge of creating and appointing members to the commission.
“I don’t think the city should have that kind of leverage, because they’ve already proven to be biased,” she said. “It’s like South Africa apartheid, and those who are implementing the oppressive policies being in charge of now fixing those policies.”
Mack said she hopes to see members of the Black community in Charlotte who understand what the community needs in terms of policy changes appointed to the city’s commission, such as members of the NAACP and ACLU.
Painful memories
All around Charlotte, monuments and streets honoring the Confederacy serve as a painful reminder for the city’s Black residents.
“As an African-American, I’m offended every time I have to pass one,” Mack said. “I hear Confederate defenders say it’s their legacy, but your legacy is based off of hate, white supremacy and murdering of Black people. So is that a legacy we should all be proud of? No, it’s not.”
Community historian Tom Hanchett said almost every street laid out in Charlotte before the 1870s was named for someone who owned slaves.
“This is a disturbing history that is so woven into community histories all over the South that it deserves exploration and has often been just taken for granted,” he said. “And so having a commission that focuses specifically on that important and troubling part of our past seems like a very good step.”
For example, Stonewall Street, named for Confederate general Stonewall Jackson, runs through what was once the heart of a Black neighborhood called Brooklyn, demolished in the 1960s and ‘70s in the name of urban renewal.
Mack said she was a part of discussions with the city to change the name of Stonewall Street over a year ago, and nothing happened.
The street ends at Bank of America stadium, which was once home to Good Samaritan Hospital, the first private hospital built exclusively for Black people in the state.
The stadium also sits on the site of the first documented lynching in Mecklenburg County, in 1913, when 19-year-old Joe McNeely was dragged from his hospital bed and shot to death by a white mob.
But Egleston said there are also lesser-known symbols of the Confederacy scattered throughout Charlotte, such as Jefferson Davis Street in the majority-Black Druid Hills neighborhood.
“Frankly, I think there’s a difference between remembering the ugly parts of our history and celebrating them,” he said. “And I think when you have streets named for Confederate leaders, that’s not done as a way to remember them — that’s done as a way to celebrate them.”
‘We need action’
Mack said she submitted an idea for a commission led by Black community members about three years ago, and the city said it was not interested.
She said she worries this commission could stand in the way of real reform. She said although she thinks the conversation around Charlotte’s racist history is important, the city should be prioritizing changing policies that would benefit the Black community, such as police reform, economic equity and housing equity.
Egleston said the commission goes along with the city’s efforts on police reform.
“We’ve been discussing poverty, opportunity, all these things for years, and people are in the same place or in a worse condition,” Mack said. “We need action. No more talk, we need action.”
