The town of Edenton, citing concerns about traffic, noise and a strain on police resources, is imposing new picketing rules on both the group pushing to remove the Confederate monument from near the town’s waterfront and groups seeking to keep it where it is.
An email from monument opponents Edenton Monument Group shared with The Daily Advance last week details five new restrictions Edenton Town Manager Corey Gooden has imposed on both monument supporters and opponents in the 500 block of South Broad Street, which includes the plaza where the monument is located.
Failing to abide by the restrictions could result in the Edenton police chief not only revoking the offending group’s current picketing permit but denial of any future permit applications, Gooden said in a June 25th memorandum attached to the Edenton Monument Group’s email.
Gooden says in the memo that while town officials respect citizens’ constitutional right to assemble and express their views, “it is nevertheless the Town’s duty to place reasonable restrictions on the exercise of such rights on public property to avoid any adverse effect on health, safety and welfare of the general public, including the Town’s citizens, businesses, and visitors.”
Citing “recent concerns about the negative effect” of the weekly protests and counter protests near the Confederate monument, Gooden said he was exercising his authority under town ordinances to impose five new restrictions on any future picketing permits issued to those “expressing views” on the monument in the 500 block of South Broad Street.
He said those concerns included, but were not limited to, “excessive diversion” of the town’s police resources to responding to the protests; picketers’ interference with both vehicular and pedestrian traffic in the 500 block of South Broad Street; and their “inappropriate or disorderly conduct, abusive and threatening language, and/or creation of a public nuisance.”
Under the new restrictions Gooden is imposing, persons participating in monument picketing activities must stay in the area designated by their permit. They also can’t “occupy or interfere” with any vehicle traffic or pedestrians.
The monument plaza, where the monument is located, is not included in the area designated on permits, Gooden said. As a result, picket participants can’t “use or occupy” the plaza. The prohibition also extends to all signage, flags, wreaths and other items, meaning those can’t be placed on the monument plaza either.
“The Monument Plaza shall remain usable by the general public during any picketing activities,” Gooden’s memo states.
Picketers’ signs can’t exceed 2 feet in width and two feet in length, according to Gooden’s memo. Also, picketers must carry their signs.
“Any signage mounted or otherwise placed in the ground or affixed to the sidewalk may only be located within the designated/permitted area,” the memo states. “Any additional/other/or unused signage must be stored and not visible to the general public if not being carried or placed in the ground.”
Picketers’ signage also can’t contain words and images that are “profane, indecent, abusive, and/or inflammatory in nature,” the memo states. Gooden’s directive doesn’t include specific examples of what qualifies as profane, indecent, abusive or inflammatory.
The new rules also prohibit the use of any sound-amplifying device whether “electronic, mechanical, or pneumatic” within picketers’ permitted area without written approval from the town. Examples include megaphones, bells, airhorns and buckets.
“Any device that increases sound volumes above human voices will require an amplified sound permit from the Town,” Gooden’s memo states.
The new restrictions on picketing near the Confederate monument follow what the group opposed to the monument claimed was a “serious escalation” by monument supporters during the groups’ dueling protests one Saturday earlier this month.
Rod Phillips, a spokesperson for the Edenton Monument Group, said in an email to town officials June 10th that a motorcycle club linked to the Sons of Confederate Veterans — members wore jackets with a Confederate flag and the words SUV Mechanized Calvary on the back — ventured into an area Phillips referred to as his group’s “side” of the competing protests.
A small parking lot adjacent to a vacant office supply building is also used by pro-monument supporters who operate an information tent on private property with the owner’s permission. The parking lot is bounded by a low wall, which became the focal point of the controversy.
Phillips alleged that motorcycle club members visited the information tent and then sat on the wall, their legs dangling into what Phillips said was his group’s space. He also said they placed a sign on the property, which extended several inches toward the sidewalk, beyond the wall.
Phillips said his group called police and an officer arrived shortly afterward. The officer had a conversation with the bikers and not long afterward, they moved off the wall and “moved across the street to join the rest of their comrades,” he said.
Before they left, however, the Confederate bikers left one of their “Protect Our History” signs “sticking out into our space,” Phillips said. While that might seem like “a minor quibble,” it’s not, he said.
Police Chief Henry A. King said at the time that despite what a parade permit might say, protesters at demonstrations often migrate outside their boundaries. He said his department could not arrest people for standing in the wrong place if they acted peacefully.
King said his department requested that the motorcyclists move to the other side of the street to keep the peace, which they did without incident. King said he did not ask the motorcyclists to remove the sign, which Phillips said encroached on his group’s space.
Edenton Town Council approved relocating the Confederate Monument to Hollowell Park last year. Chief Resident Superior Court Judge Jerry Tillett, however, prohibited the move after the United Daughters of the Confederacy and two chapters of the Sons of Confederate Veterans filed a lawsuit challenging the town’s authority to move the monument under state law. The town has asked Tillett for a hearing so it can formally request he lift his order preventing the move. No date has been set for that hearing.
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