Press Release
September 28, 2021 (Graham, NC)—A diverse coalition of local Alamance residents and civil rights activists, including the North Carolina NAACP, secured a major victory when the Alamance Superior Court ruled that a lawsuit alleging that a Confederate monument in front of the Alamance County Courthouse violates the North Carolina Constitution may proceed.
As the lawsuit explains, the monument exalts the cause of slavery, secession, and white supremacy; it causes particular pain to Black residents; and it wastes taxpayer dollars on security costs that will be unnecessary once the statue topped by an armed Confederate soldier is gone. The monument stands illegally because the Constitution outlaws government action that sows disunion, denies equal protection, exhibits racial discrimination, and squanders public money. “The court’s ruling is a groundbreaking recognition of plaintiffs’ claims that the Alamance County Confederate Monument has always been at odds with the values enshrined in our state’s Constitution,” says attorney for the Plaintiffs Gagan Gupta of Paynter Law. “The Monument’s location outside a prominent courthouse represents messages of racial disunity and secession that are unacceptable to an ever-growing portion of our citizenry.”
The Plaintiffs are a multi-racial coalition of Alamance County residents, nonprofits, and business groups, including the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, the NAACP Alamance County Branch #5368, Down Home NC, Engage Alamance, and Dreama Caldwell, Tamara Kersey, Reverend Doctor Daniel Kuhn, Reverend Randy Orwig, and Maryanne Shanahan.
In addition to Paynter Law, Plaintiffs are represented by former North Carolina Deputy Attorney General Hampton Dellinger and the law firms of Tin Fulton Walker & Owen and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP.
Copies of the relevant orders can be found here.
About Paynter Law:
With offices in Raleigh and Hillsborough, North Carolina, and in Washington, D.C., Paynter Law is dedicated to protecting the rights of businesses, consumers, and individuals, with a focus on class actions, civil rights cases, high-stakes personal injury litigation, complex commercial cases, intellectual property disputes, insurance coverage disputes, and antitrust litigation. More about the firm can be found at: www.paynterlaw.com.