In a meeting today in Raleigh, the North Carolina Historical Commission voted to postpone until their April 2018 meeting any decision regarding a petition from the N.C. Department of Administration to relocate three Confederate monuments from the State Capitol grounds in Raleigh to the Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site in Four Oaks, N.C. The original motion, which was entered by Commissioner Samuel Dixon, is available here.
A committee appointed from commission members will study the issue and seek advice and legal opinions from appropriate entities. An amendment to the original motion named Commissioner Valerie Johnson, who is also chair of the N.C. African American Heritage Commission, as a member of the committee, to ensure that commission’s voice is represented.
The three monuments being considered for relocation are the 1895 Confederate Monument, the Henry Lawson Wyatt Monument and the North Carolina Women of the Confederacy Monument.
In other business, the commission:
Approved several additions of donated and purchased items to state historical collections, along with the removal of some items from the collections.
Approved a petition to install a memorial plaque at the Chowan County Courthouse commemorating the 1779-1954 meeting place of the Unanimity Masonic Lodge #7.
Approved a request from the Division of Archives and History to begin the process of acquiring the Golden Frinks “Freedom House” as an addition to the Historic Edenton State Historic Site. Golden Frinks was arguably the most important civil rights activist in North Carolina in the 1960s and 1970s. The “Freedom House” was Frinks’ home in Edenton.
Founded in 1903, the North Carolina Historical Commission is an 11-member board of professional historians and interested citizens appointed by the Governor in staggered terms. The commission oversees the North Carolina Office of Archives and History within the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, and it is charged with setting policy for the state’s identification, collection, management, preservation, interpretation and programming related to manuscripts and other records, historical and archaeological artifacts, and historic sites and properties held by most institutions located within the department.