HALIFAX COUNTY, N.C. — After standing in Randolph Park for nearly a century, a monument in Halifax County originally built to honor soldiers of the Confederacy and later expanded to include veterans of foreign wars, now lies in pieces.
On Sunday night, Aug. 21, the mayor of Enfield leveled a monument from the 1920s honoring the soldiers of the Confederacy. The town council agreed to remove the monument with only one opposing vote Monday, Aug. 15.
Mayor Mondale Robinson personally took up a hammer to bring down the monument that he said he walks past every morning on his stroll through the park.
“I didn't want a week to go by and me not do what I said I would do,” Robinson said. “I didn't want to start out the business week, another Monday where children might be out here walking with their grandparents and they would have to look at that Confederate flag.”
In the 2020 census the town population was listed as being 85% Black, but Robinson says that number is far higher in reality. He said the monument stood in direct opposition to the health and safety of the community.
“When people have anxiety and trauma associated with something, they are more violent and volatile, and that Confederate flag coupled with the rise of white nationalism created an unsafe space for people in Enfield,” Robinson said.
Robinson said he never expected to see the monument come down in his lifetime, and it brings both happiness and sorrow for him as he sees the division between residents over its removal.
“Whether they believe it or not, I did it for the white folk of Enfield, too, because I want to remove the idea that they're supreme or the idea that white supremacy isn't real,” Robinson said.
The State Bureau of Investigation is determining whether any laws were broken in the destruction of the monument, which also honored veterans of foreign wars. The mayor paid for its destruction and removal so that the town has no expense.
“Veterans of all stripes should have felt some type of way about being put on a statue with someone who sought out to destroy the Union, the very constitution that you swore an oath to,” Robinson said.
The monument stood 10 feet tall just off the walking path in the park, adjacent to a small playground. The mayor said he expected the pieces of the monument to be completely removed by Tuesday afternoon, but he does plan to preserve the plaque honoring veterans from the Korean War and World War II.
“I think we should save that plaque because it's a plaque, and it has nothing to do with this monument and it can come off, but the stuff that's carved in stone, that's theater,” Robinson said. “And now the American flag flies. If you want to salute a flag, we got one for you.”