Another statue down - Raleigh, NC - Judge Thomas Ruffin
NC Court removing statue of controversial judge, slave owner in downtown Raleigh
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/article244185702.html
Thomas Ruffin, a 19th century North Carolina Supreme Court chief justice, has long stood as a controversial emblem of the state’s judicial history.
His legacy, which includes pro-slavery rulings and rhetoric, and his own status as a slave owner, will no longer grace the state’s Court of Appeals in downtown Raleigh.
Sharon Gladwell, communications director for the state’s court system, told The News & Observer that Ruffin’s statue was removed due to safety concerns associated with it.
“The State Capitol Police recently informed the Court of Appeals (COA) of safety concerns associated with the Thomas Ruffin statue remaining at the COA Building,” she said in an email. “After making a request of the Governor’s Office for the statue to be removed, the Court began working cooperatively with the N.C. Department of Administration and the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources on the removal and relocation of the statue. The statue was removed this morning.”
The removal comes amid a push by protesters to take down statues and other monuments erected in memory of the confederacy and pro-slavery historical figures. Last month, Gov. Roy Cooper ordered the removal of three confederate monuments at the Capitol, just days after protesters tore down two confederate statues. He cited public safety then as the reason for their removal.
Ruffin was North Carolina’s third chief justice, and his statue was erected over a century ago in 1915. In his time on the state’s highest court, he authored a decision affirming the “absolute” power of a slave owner in a widely studied case in slave law.
When a young enslaved woman named Lydia sought to evade punishment from slave owner John Mann, he shot her from behind. In State v. Mann, an 1829 case, a jury found Mann guilty of assault and battery. But Ruffin overturned the decision, writing that “the power of the master must be absolute, to render the submission of the slave perfect.”
Ruffin was also a slave owner and operated his own plantation, where he reportedly rubbed salt and pepper into the wounds of his slaves, among other extreme practices.
In January, the Orange County courthouse in Hillsborough removed Ruffin’s portrait, citing “his racist past and his participation in slave trading and slave ownership.”
On Friday, UNC-Chapel Hill’s History, Race and A Way Forward Commission voted to recommend renaming Ruffin Residence Hall, alongside three other buildings named after men who “used their positions to impose and maintain violent systems of racial subjugation.”