WATERBURY — A controversial post on the Waterbury green that may have served as a whipping post will be removed and likely preserved in a museum. Waterbur...

WATERBURY -- A controversial post on the Waterbury green that may have served as a whipping post will be removed and likely preserved in a museum.

Waterbury Mayor Neil O'Leary, met with local African-American leaders Thursday and announced the action.

The post on the Waterbury Green had been an unassuming part of city history for decades, but a recent performance piece posted to Facebook drew attention to the fact that it was once also a whipping post.

In the piece, a young community activist is seen bloody and whipped, reenacting what it may have been like for a slave to be whipped at such a post.

Since, the mayor said he's gotten hundreds of calls and emails, sparking up the debate.

"The NAACP felt strongly that it's very offensive to the African community, by its very nature being displayed on the green," O'Leary said.

The meeting between Mayor O'Leary, acting president of the Greater Waterbury Branch of the NAACP Ginne-Rae Clay and Pastor Rodney Wade of the Concerned Black Clergy Council of Waterbury, Thursday, resulted in the group unanimously agreeing the post should be removed off the green.

"As we sit here in 2017 we were able to come into a room together, have meaningful conversation, around it and we all came to the same conclusion that it is something we did not want in the present moment," Wade said.

"The green is the center of the city of Waterbury, its a place people come to meet," O'Leary said. "We've put 2-million dollars into it to renovate it so people would feel comfortable being there and be happy to be together."

These leaders felt the post was important to Waterbury's history and should be preserved in a museum so others can learn about it.

"I'm sure slaves were beat there, other people were beat there too," Clay said. "It's history for not only the African American culture but its history of public humiliation, and it's history of our city."

Rachel Guest, Library Director of Waterbury's Silas Bronson Library, said every Connecticut town had a whipping post in the 1700s. According to Guest, whipping posts were a part of colonial law in Connecticut until the 1830s. The posts were used as a form of punishment for anyone who committed crimes such as adultery, or did not pay court fees. Certain crimes -- including breaking curfew, or being accused of slander or theft -- were only punishable by whipping if committed by a slave.

"With slander, if you were white, you didn't get whipped," explained Guest. "You just had to pay a fine."

For a slave, Guest said the punishment for slander was likely 40 lashes. For theft, it was 30.

The posts were also legitimately used as places to post town news or bulletins.

Mayor O'Leary said a number of historians researched the post and it is still unclear if it was actually used for punishment.