Confederate statue ownership now questioned amid removal row

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — Questions about the ownership of a Confederate monument that city officials in North Carolina want gone have arisen just days before the city-imposed deadline for removal.

In a Jan. 25 letter, the United Daughters of the Confederacy’s North Carolina chapter asked Winston-Salem’s city attorney for a 60-day delay on filing legal action to force the removal. The city had issued a Jan. 31 deadline.

The UDC has previously claimed ownership of the statue, but The Winston-Salem Journal reports a local historian recently unearthed news accounts in which the UDC presented it to a Confederate veterans group that no longer exists. The UDC wants a delay to resolve who actually owns the monument and whether the state’s monument protection law applies.

Mayor Allen Joines says “a shorter delay” might be granted.

___

Information from: Winston-Salem Journal, http://www.journalnow.com