A Confederate statue in front of the courthouse in Columbia, N.C., with a plaque on the bottom that reads: “IN APPRECIATION OF OUR FAITHFUL SLAVES.
” Dwight Fenner hide caption So, this week marks the celebration of Juneteenth, which is still a fairly new holiday for me and my family. And all the Juneteenth parties and remembrances reminded me of an article my uncle sent me recently. It’s about a group of Black citizens who filed a federal lawsuit in an attempt to get rid of a Confederate monument in Columbia, N.
C., the hometown of my grandfather and his entire family. The 23-foot-high statue sits at the front of the local courthouse with a plaque on the bottom that reads: “IN APPRECIATION OF OUR FAITHFUL SLAVES.
” Full transparency, the town of Columbia rests dear in my heart. It’s just nine miles away from Creswell, where, last year around this time, I made a two- part series about the origins of my family on the Somerset Place plantation and what it could look like to honor my enslaved ancestors. A lofty goal, for sure, but it comes from a desire to actually appreciate the enslaved people that lived in the town.
[Editor's note: This is an excerpt of Code Switch's Up All Night newsletter. You can sign up here .] Back to the statue.
Some articles mention the bust of Robert E. Lee at the center of it, but the larger monument actually commemorates a Confederate brigadier general named James Johnston Pettigrew . One of the things Pettigrew is known for is losing more .