State Appeals Court rules on challenge to NC Confederate soldier monument
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Court of Appeals upheld Gaston County’s right to keep the monument on courthouse grounds.
- Panel found no proof the statue denied access to courts or violated state constitution.
- Ruling limits suits seeking removals unless plaintiffs show actual denial of court access.
The Confederate soldier towering over the Gaston County courthouse will remain at his post, despite the NAACP saying it violates Black people’s state constitutional rights.
A three-judge panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals rejected the civil rights organization’s argument that the rebel soldier holding his rifle atop a 30-foot obelisk, deprived people of their rights. While the Confederate monument may be offensive to some, there’s no evidence that it prevents people from accessing courts, the panel ruled.
The Gaston County branch of the NAACP and others who sued needed to prove an “actual denial of access to functioning courts,” not “subjective beliefs or feelings that might discourage some hypothetical person’s entry,” Judge Donna Stroud wrote in an opinion supported by Judges Jeffrey Carpenter and April Wood.
The decision this week affirms county officials’ right to keep Confederate monuments on public property, if they choose, shielding them from civil rights organizations’ demands to take them down or move them.
Judge rejects argument that law prevents removals
The Gaston County branch of the NAACP, the National Association for Black Veterans, the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and three county taxpayers filed the lawsuit in 2020, asking a superior court judge to order the monument’s removal.
Over that year, demands to remove Confederate monuments on public property resurfaced across the state and the nation following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and other incidents that critics said demonstrated cruel and careless treatment of Black people by some law enforcement officers.
Gaston officials argued in court that the state’s 2015 Monument Protection Law prevents the stone soldier’s removal.
In 2024, Superior Court Judge Robert Ervin rejected the county’s claim that the law completely prevented the removal or relocation of monument. Some of the state law’s exceptions could “potentially” apply to the stone soldier, Ervin found.
Ervin still dismissed the NAACP’s lawsuit, saying it failed to prove that the monument violated their rights to accessible courts or equal access to justice under the law.
The NAACP was also involved in a similar lawsuit in 2022, seeking a judge’s order to force Alamance County to remove its Confederate soldier memorial outside a courthouse in Graham.
In that case, the appellate panel rejected the organization’s argument that the memorial limited access to courts by broadcasting and sanctioning racial degradation, creating the appearance of judicial prejudice.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly named Judge Donna Stroud as the chief judge of the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Chris Dillan is the current chief judge of the appellate court. The article was updated at 7:18 p.m. Thursday.
This story was originally published March 5, 2026 at 8:17 AM with the headline "State Appeals Court rules on challenge to NC Confederate soldier monument."