Letter: If biz owners seek 'welcome to all' message, they'd oppose town's Confederate monument

If biz owners really seek ‘welcome to all’ message, they’d oppose town’s Confederate monument

Regarding last week’s “counter-counter ‘protest” story in the Chowan Herald and The Daily Advance, I have been wondering what it would take to get Edenton’s downtown business community involved in our Confederate monument issue. Now we all know. Let them imagine their bottom line threatened.

With rumors of an economic boycott floating up and down South Broad Street, reported in this paper the week before, downtown business interests apparently decided — after sticking their collective head in the sand for the past two and a half years — that action was now needed.

They had the whole length of South Broad Street in which to spread their message, but they chose to take up positions in the 500 block of the street? What is their “message of welcome” when they extend a “Visit Edenton” pamphlet while standing just yards from a Confederate monument and feet from a Sons of Confederate Veterans “information” booth?

Just who are they trying to welcome? Surely not the 2,600 Black citizens of this town.

Message of welcome? If their message is anything other than, “Come, spend your money here, white people,” I missed it.

The fact that South Broad Street is a largely segregated business district? Well, of course, they gladly welcome all. If many of the town’s Black residents — and Black visitors — feel uncomfortable in the presence of a Confederate monument or refuse to shop near one as a matter of principle, well, that’s not the businesses’ fault.

On this very moral issue of Confederate monuments sited on public lands, supported by public monies, silence is acceptance, and acceptance is approval.

Eldridge Cleaver expressed it best: “There is no more neutrality in the world. You either have to be part of the solution, or you’re going to be part of the problem.”

The time may be near when downtown business owners have to finally speak up and pick a side. Silence is no longer acceptable. And if they choose to side with the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the United Daughters of the Confederacy and their ilk, they are only helping keep this problem on life support, not working to solve it.

We in Move the Monument Coalition feel that we are doing a very positive thing for the town. If if these downtown business people really want to send a message of welcome to all, they should join the effort to remove this Confederate monument. Standing in the heart of downtown Edenton, it’s sending the wrong message.

ROD PHILLIPS

Edenton