Assignment editors: WRAL will be providing a pool video feed at this meeting.
The North Carolina Historical Commission Confederate Monuments Study Committee will hold a public meeting from 1:30 – 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 21, to accept public comment on a petition to relocate three Confederate monuments from the State Capitol grounds in Raleigh to the Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site in Four Oaks, N.C.
The study committee is currently accepting public comment through an online portal. The online portal will remain available until the study committee votes to close it. All comments, whether made online or in person, will be considered by the committee.
The March 21 public meeting will be held in in the first-floor auditorium of the Archives and History/State Library Building, 109 E. Jones St., Raleigh. Speaker registration will begin at 12:30 p.m.
If possible, speakers are asked to provide a written copy of their oral comments.
During a March 12 conference call meeting, the study committee voted to enact the following procedures for the public meeting:
- The Study Committee public hearing will begin at 1:30 p.m. and end at 3:30 p.m.
- Members of the Study Committee may attend the public hearing in person or electronically.
- The Study Committee Chairman may extend the meeting for an additional one hour until 4:30 p.m. if he determines additional time is needed.
- Speakers must sign in using their name and hometown.
- Speakers shall be allowed to speak for one minute and a red warning card shall be held up after 30 seconds has passed.
- Speakers shall be invited to speak in the order they have signed up on a list to be kept by a staff member assigned by Dr. Kevin Cherry. However, the Study Committee Chairman may in his discretion ask for comments representing another view if it appears that the Study Committee has not heard speakers representing various viewpoints.
- The speakers shall address the full Study Committee and shall not direct comments or questions to individual members.
- The Study Committee hearing is limited to comments about monuments on the Capitol Square in Raleigh and not about monuments in other locations including the Silent Sam monument in Chapel Hill.
- No applause or other noises or clapping shall be allowed or tolerated before, during or after any speaker. Individuals in attendance who violate this rule will first be warned and then removed from the audience if a second violation occurs.
- If those wanting to speak are lined up outside the auditorium and there is insufficient space to allow their entrance into the auditorium, then after each speaker completes their one-minute remarks that speaker will be asked to leave the auditorium and, if they agree, any individual waiting to speak will be seated in the order they signed up.
- The public will be notified of these rules, both on the DNCR and Historical Commission website, and by meeting attendees being given a copy of the rules.
Members of the public may choose to use the online portal to comment on the petition to relocate three Confederate monuments from the State Capitol grounds in Raleigh to the Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site in Four Oaks, N.C. Comments submitted online are not limited in length and will be given the same consideration as comments made in person.
For more information about the North Carolina Historical Commission, visit www.ncdcr.gov/nchc.