NC Confederate statue debate likely to include Vance Monument

Note: An earlier version of this article misstated Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer's views on the Vance Monument. It has been corrected below.

In the wake of Gov. Roy Cooper's call to remove all Confederate monuments in North Carolina, Asheville's most prominent landmark will likely take center stage.

The Vance Monument, a 65-foot obelisk that has dominated Pack Square for more than a century, memorializes Zebulon Baird Vance, a Buncombe County native and N.C. governor during the Civil War. Vance also served as a U.S. senator and representative, and he was a white supremacist and slave owner, complicating his legacy.

The state legislature has ultimate authority over such removals because of a 2015 law prohibiting localities from removing them without state approval. Cooper called this week for that law to be repealed and for the monuments to go.

Violence at a Charlottesville, Virginia, rally over the weekend, as well as a subsequent protest in Durham that toppled a Confederate statue, moved him to call for removal, Cooper said.

Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer said Wednesday she agreed with Cooper and the city should consider removing a Pack Square monument recognizing Confederate Army Gen. Robert E. Lee.

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"Now is the time to stop glorifying those who supported the oppression and enslavement of people because of the color of their skin," Manheimer said in an email. "This practice is a pillar of institutionalized racism that we have an opportunity to knock down."

Manheimer said she is not calling for the removal of the Vance Monument.

"The community has a variety of opinions about the Vance Monument and council is eager to hear the community's ideas about how to contextualize the memorial," she said.

North Carolina is one of three states — along with Virginia and Georgia — with 90 or more Confederate monuments, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

A state tally shows at least 120 Civil War monuments around North Carolina, with most dedicated to the Confederacy. About 50 are located at contemporary or historic courthouses.

Kirk Lyons, a Black Mountain attorney who serves as chief counsel for the Southern Legal Resource Center, called the push to remove Confederate monuments a "modern-day witch hunt."

"Obviously, we would be opposed to any destruction of the monument or any moving of the monument," Lyons said, adding that groups pushing for monument removals are not only going after Southern history. "It's gone way, way beyond Southern heritage. We're just a speed bump.

"They want us down first because we're low-hanging fruit. They'll be going after the Founding Fathers next, and then really anything before 1960 is going to be fair game."

He imagines a country that will look "like a destroyed wasteland of monuments" akin to what ISIS has done in Middle Eastern countries.

Lyons said he would oppose contextualization of the monument by adding more plaques or another monument detailing other aspects of history, but he could live with that over removing the obelisk entirely.

Darin Waters, an Asheville native, African-American and an assistant professor of history at UNC Asheville, said he is not calling for the removal of the monument. But he would like to see historical context added that provides "the good, the bad and the ugly" of Vance's life, as well as context detailing local African-American heritage and achievements.

"I think it stands as a historical artifact that says more about the time and the people who put the monument there than it does about Vance, and there’s something we can learn from that as a society," Waters said. "Looking into the future, my argument would be that this will really make us think about how we remember and memorialize people."

The push to remove monuments could easily encompass hundreds throughout the South and more than 100 in North Carolina, Lyons said. "North Carolina Civil War Monuments, an Illustrated History," by Jay Butler, documents 102 monuments in the Tar Heel state.

But Lyons said the number is likely higher, as courthouses throughout the state, as well as those throughout the South, often have a Confederate memorial of some kind.

Lyons argues the monuments are here and they are deeply ingrained in our history. Removing them will not erase history, he said, and in many cases represent a cultural loss as well, as some of them — and Lyons includes the Vance obelisk here — are works of art.

The Vance Monument was dedicated on May 10, 1898, four years after Vance's death. Born in Reems Creek in northern Buncombe County, where his home place is a state park, Vance served as North Carolina's governor during the Civil War and as a U.S. senator from 1880 until his death in 1894.

Vance and his family had owned slaves, Citizen-Times history columnist Rob Neufeld noted in a recent column. But he also robustly championed the state, making him popular with its citizens.

"He defended the South against Northern business domination, such as unfair tariffs; stood up for North Carolina against Confederate infringements on state law, such as suspension of habeas corpus; put forward progressive reforms for laborers and farmers; and championed Jewish people in his paper, 'The Scattered Nation,'" Neufeld wrote.

At the monument dedication, the Asheville Concert Band played "Dixie," and a large enthusiastic crowd hailed their hero.

Vance will not be the only former Confederate coming under fire. Lyons said he is handling multiple requests for assistance in monument removal cases, including ones in Florida, Texas and Tennessee.

Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell, known for his outspoken stances, said he opposes removal of the Vance Monument.

"I recognize that the Vance monument has local relevance, but it would be great to remove the plaque, or to replace it with one that acknowledges both his governorship and his slave holding," Bothwell said. "His service in the Confederate army should be dropped.”

Bothwell said he would like to see the Lee monument removed.

"Lee has no local relevance other than luring local men to their doom," he said. "The Lee stone was installed by the Daughters of the Confederacy in 1903 during the rise of Jim Crow and lynchings across the South. It is a badge of shame for Asheville.”

Waters said the veneration of Southern heroes is a tricky subject to navigate, because those heroes often fought to keep in place the institution of slavery, and after the war sometimes worked to keep black people subjugated.

"That is a fine line between, 'Does this monument stand as a memorial that is celebrating a very painful and quite frankly a tragic period of American history?'" Waters said, referring to Vance. "That can’t be denied. When it was put there, that’s exactly what it was."

But an artist could work wonders by "conceptualizing" the monument, adding more truthful details of Vance's history and celebrating African-American lives, Waters said.

Vance, like all people, was a complicated individual, Waters said, a man who championed public education funded by the state but also a politician who "equated political equality with negro domination."

He was a man of his time, Waters said, and part of that historical era was very ugly.

Before any action on the Vance Monument occurs, Waters would like to see a democratic process take place, one that comprises public meetings and possibly a vote. This is an opportunity for the city to emerge stronger and more in tune with its residents, he stressed.

In a column this summer suggesting the Vance Monument be repurposed to reflect African-American heritage in Asheville, historian Mark Essig acknowledged that, "In his time, Vance was North Carolina's greatest statesman, beloved for his masterful speeches, quick wit, and deft political skills that held the state together during times of crisis."

Born in 1830, Vance studied at the University of North Carolina, briefly practiced law in Asheville and then served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1858-1861, Essig wrote. Vance also fought in the Civil War and was a two-time North Carolina governor.

Celebrated by whites, Vance "united North Carolina by destroying the hopes of its black citizens," Essig wrote, and that is at the heart of the argument against venerating the man.

"The Vance Monument is a tribute to a white supremacist, the leader of a political party that destroyed the promise of Reconstruction and imposed segregation upon North Carolina," Essig wrote. "The monument is a towering insult to African-Americans, an affront to American ideals and an embarrassment to the city of Asheville."

The Associated Press contributed to this article.