Aug. 14. By Dave Yochum. A national debate over Confederate monuments is unfolding again in Cornelius where it emerged two years ago during a wave of vandalism.
The Confederate Veterans Monument on Zion Avenue has been spray painted with a bright blue “X” through the words Confederate Soldiers carved in stone 107 years ago. On another side of the monument, the word “NO” is painted over two swords.
The monument, which cost $10,000 in 1910, sits behind a recently erected metal fence. It sits on private property owned by the Mt. Zion Monument Association. The association did not return Cornelius Today’s phone call by the time this story was posted.
Some years ago, a minister at the nearby church said he wished that nearby trees that fell during an intense storm had fallen on the monument.
The vandalism in Cornelius is symbolic of the difficult racial landscape more than 150 years after the end of the Civil War.
It’s unclear exactly when the monument was defaced, but it was reported one day after white nationalists clashed with police and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Va., home of the University of Virginia.
One woman was killed after a latter-day Nazi sympathizer plowed his car into the crowds. Heather D. Heyer, 32, was described as “a passionate advocate for the disenfranchised.”
It is not clear whether officials will place a tarp over the monument as they did two years ago when it was defaced during a wave of vandalism in the South. It was subsequently scrubbed and fenced. A sign says the monument is under “24/7 infrared camera surveillance.” Here is a story from Aug. 7, 2015: http://corneliustoday.com/cleansing-history-at-confederate-monument
Back in July of 2015, swastikas were painted on the monument as well as the phrase “Stop honoring white supremacy.”
The Cornelius Confederate Monument was erected in a different day and time. A history of Mecklenburg County by historian Dan Morrill says “Slavery was a fundamental component of the social hierarchy of pre-Civil War Mecklenburg County.”
In 1860, slaves comprised roughly 40 percent of the local population—6,800 out of 17,000—making Mecklenburg County one of the highest in terms of the number of “bondspeople” in the North Carolina Piedmont, Morrill writes.
The Cornelius monument commemorates the local Confederate dead, not a general like Robert E. Lee. A Confederate Common Soldier statue stands on top of a tall tapered column at parade rest, facing north with his rifle resting on the ground. 
The rally in Charlottesville was organized in opposition to plans to remove a statue of Lee from Emancipation Park in Charlottesville. Members of white nationalist groups as well as the Ku Klux Klan clashed with counter-protesters and police.
Here is the Cornelius Police narrative on the incident, which apparently occurred sometime Saturday night or during the early morning hours Sunday:
“David Hodson, at 19600 Zion Ave Cornelius NC 28031 reference a damage to property report. Mr. Hodson stated when he arrived at the location he found the Confederate Memorial Monument owned by the Mt. Zion Monumental Association had been spray painted by an unknown subject(s). sometime overnight.”
Neither Hodson nor the monument association could be reached for comment.
