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Residents press commissioners to remove Confederate monument and rethink budget priorities
Summary
Multiple speakers at the July 28 meeting urged the board to remove a Confederate monument on the courthouse grounds and to reallocate county budget priorities toward education and equity rather than continued protection of the monument.
Several residents used the public-comment period to demand the removal of the Confederate monument at the courthouse entrance and to call for budget and policy changes that they say would better reflect community values.
"If you're willing to tolerate a symbol of racism in the seat of our government, you're playing for team white supremacy," said Ann Das Helms, criticizing the board's silence on the monument. Diana Graham, vice president of the NAACP Gastonia Branch, told commissioners she and others were "tired" of asking for removal and urged the board to change budget allocations so education receives funding closer to public safety levels. "We're not asking you to raise taxes... We're asking the board of commissioners to rethink how the existing budget is allocated," Graham said.
Other commenters, including Dr. Tasha Prieto, compared recent removals of similar state monuments with local inaction and called on the board to follow suit. The speakers framed the monument as a public-symbol and equity issue and asked that the board respond to these concerns in future actions.
