Confederate statue vandalized with graffiti

At 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 23,  workers were beginning to clean graffiti off of the base of the Confederate statue in front of the Historic Randolph County Courthouse in Asheboro after it was vandalized overnight. The statue has been at the center of much debate in recent years, but that talk has picked up in recent months. The Randolph County NAACP and several area churches combined to hold a rally there earlier this year, with the local NAACP leading an effort to have the statue from courthouse grounds to elsewhere in the county. Speakers regularly fill up the public comment portion of monthly Randolph County Commissioner meetings debating the statue's value or lack thereof. In late spring, commissioners unanimously voted to keep it in place. A few months later, however, The Asheboro City Council voted unanimously to send a resolution to the Randolph County Board of Commissioners to have it moved for safety and economic reasons. The city has no jurisdiction regarding the statue because the property it is on is county owned. And so, the public debate continues.