Chapel Hill Cemetery

C. – More than 50 people came out to Chapel Hill Saturday to help decorate the graves of those who served our country.Flags were placed on graves in Chapel Hill Saturday for Memorial day.It happened at Chapel Hill Memorial Cemetery. Flags were placed on nearly 500 graves. For nearly 30 years the VFW, other organizations, and volunteers have come out to put flags on the graves at Chapel Hill Memorial Cemetery. They post flags on nearly 500 graves. RELATED: Hundreds of Flags Posted in Mooresville in Memory of Fallen HeroesThis is one of the many ways people in North Carolina are honoring heroes on Memorial Day Weekend. ...

The new museum-like facility would be located on the site of the arsenal General Sherman’s troops destroyed in 1865.Supporters of the project hope the legislature will provide $46 million to launch construction. They explain that the emphasis of the project will not be on the war’s battles, flags, uniforms, monuments, and weapons. Rather it will focus on life in the state from about 1835 to the end of the 19th Century.Others in Fayetteville, including Mayor Mitch Colvin, believe the facility could become a focal point for confrontations between white supremacists and counter-protesters. They worry about what happened in Charlottesville in 2017. Colvin would rather state money be used to deal with pressing community problems.Fayetteville’s NAACP President Jimmy Buxton told WUNC radio that the facility could attract white supremacists whatever the intent of the organizers. “Even if those who are in charge of this say it’s not, this is what racists are thinking–a Civil War museum. When they get here they may be fooled, but they’re coming anyway because they feel like what they’ve been worshiping all their lives is going to be in this museum.”Buxton’s remarks were a timely reminder that it is almost impossible to do anything related to the Civil War without opening the door to criticism that the activity is racist or evidence of latent white supremacist attitudes of its promoters.I thought of these things last week on a three-day trip to Gettysburg with a group of East Chapel Hill Rotarians under the leadership of Civil War expert Fred Kiger. For many of my generation, a trip to Gettysburg is an important pilgrimage, a visit to a shrine, the place where North Carolina soldiers were slaughtered in their effort to drive federal troops from their positions on Cemetery Ridge. Though unsuccessful, those troops advanced to the federal defensive line, leading to the old boast about North Carolina troops that they were “Farthest to the Front at Gettysburg.”Would it be fair for Buxton to ask me if...