COLUMBIA, N.C. — The first time Sherryreed Robinson remembers noticing the words — “IN APPRECIATION OF OUR FAITHFUL SLAVES” — etched on a Confederate monument in Columbia, North Carolina, she was a teenager performing with her high school band on the steps of the Tyrrell County courthouse. She remembers approaching the 23-foot Confederate soldier statue and focusing on those six words.

For Robinson, a high school junior at the time, “faithful” and “slaves” did not feel right together.

About three decades later, with the 123-year-old monument still overlooking the historic town’s Main Street, she joined a federal lawsuit calling for the “faithful slaves” inscription to be removed or covered. It is believed to be the only courthouse monument in the country to “textually express” such a mes

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