In September 2025, the City of Wilmington, North Carolina, announced two removed monuments to the Confederacy would be reinstated in the Summer of 2026. The two monuments were a statue of Wilmington native George Davis, who was the attorney general for the Confederacy, and a statue dedicated to unnamed Confederate soldiers. The statues will be displayed at Valor Memorial Park. According to Mary Bradbury from the non-profit group Commemorating Honor Inc., an organization dedicated to restoring monuments and commemorating war heroes, “We are happy to have the Wilmington monuments. We are also thankful to all those involved with helping make it possible to restore these monuments at Valor Memorial Park”.
The statues of Davis and the Confederate Soldiers have been standing since 1911 and 1924 respectively. In 2020, due to protests from the Black Lives Matter Movement, the statues were torn down but their pedestals remained. In August of 2021, Wilmington’s city council voted to remove the pedestals permanently and not to put the statues back. Later that month, the Cape Fear 3 chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy claimed ownership of the statues and reached an agreement with the city to store the statues until the chapter could take them. The statues were stored secretly until September of this year. At this time, Commemorating Honor nor the Daughters of the Confederacy responded to questions about the monuments.
Valor Memorial Park was founded in December 2020 by United Daughter of Confederacy member Toni London and officially dedicated in September 2021. Monuments dedicated to unnamed and named soldiers were erected and completed throughout the years. London’s reason for the creation of Valor Park was to honor all veterans in American history. London is not the only one who wants to restore Confederate Statues. In August 2025, The National Park Service announced that they plan to restore a bronze statue of Confederate General Albert Pike. The statue has since been renovated and restored in Washington D.C’s Judiciary Square. The Trump administration has also wanted to restore Confederate monuments, with the Pentagon ordering a portrait of Robert E. Lee to be rehung at West Point. President Trump called the removal of these monuments “a false reconstruction of American history.”
There are a variety of opinions on the reinstatement of these monuments. On the statue of Pike, Democratic Delegate Elanor Holmes Norton commented, “Pike served dishonorably. He took up arms against the United States, misappropriated funds, and was captured by his own troops… Confederate statues should be placed in museums as historical artifacts, not remain in parks or other locations that imply honor.” Meanwhile, the Valor Memorial Park in North Carolina has seen some success with their monthly fundraisers selling out quickly. The difference of reactions between the Valor Memorial and the removal of Pike’s statue highlights a key point in the argument of the existence of these statues: The location of where they are placed matters. Moving the statues to a private land like Valor Memorial Park instead of in front of government buildings allows them to not be associated with the current state of the United States government. But some argue that allowing the statues to exist at all is another form of racial injustice. Regardless, Valor Memorial Park could be seen as a solution, albeit not a permanent one.
