Despite the cold, a few hundred people gathered in front of the grounds of the historic First Baptist Church in downtown Rocky Mount on Sunday afternoon, filling parking lots and spilling across Franklin Street.
The crowd stretched nearly a city block in either direction, arriving early to witness the unveiling of the town’s Raising the Shade monument, a towering bronze statue of a Black Civil War soldier, a member of the Union army.
The crowd gasped and applauded when the black draping that had covered the statue since it was installed last week was pulled to the ground.
The soldier stands on a marble base, rifle tipped back over his right shoulder. He stares into the distance, as if he’s searching for freedom, described activist and lead organizer Glenna Moore. One foot rests on a piece of stone.
The monument lists the names of the 70 Franklin County-born members of the U.S. Colored Troops whom it honors, names that were missing from the public record for “far too long,” Franklin County NAACP president Eric Anspaugh said at the unveiling ceremony. Sunday’s dedication was intended to begin to correct that silence, he said.
The theme of the day, emphasized by the Rev. Christopher Coates in his opening prayer, was a commitment to equality, a commitment to justice. “Let this moment deepen our resolve to building a community where all people are valued, where history is honored and where truth is told without fear or apology,” he said.
The program continued with an address from retired Army Lt. Col. Larry Moore, a member of the Raising the Shade committee, who spoke first about the hardships that enslaved people endured during the Middle Passage, the forced sea journey from Africa to North America. It is important to to lay that foundation — important to remember the full history, he said. To acknowledge, without a doubt, that 407 years ago, Black people were brought here without consent.
“They were not conceived in liberty and not dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal,” Moore said. “They were born out of the hull of slave ships with shackles around their ankles and wrists, stripped … of their clothing and sold on the auction blocks in public service.”
The Civil War was a fight for their liberty. “They fought, not only for themselves, but for the freedom and rights of generations they would never live to see,” Moore said.
Moore closed his speech by quoting Ronald Reagan, when that president said that “anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.”
With a “Welcome home, America,” the monument was revealed.
“Of all the days that we need something like this, it is happening now,” attendee Michelle Lindsey said in the moment that followed.