Back in the early 90's a group of NAACP delegate made a protest in our town council about the Confederate Statue in front of our Courthouse. The monument was dedicate to two local heros of the town.
Now the funny thing about this was that this delegations was mainly members of the oldest "Histroically" Black church in our town which dated it existance from 1864. The debate wasn't progressing too well for preserving the monument until one of our local historians pointed out that their Church existed well before 1864 and as early as the mid 1840's. But it had not been historically all black at that time. Than it had been a mixed congragation of both Whites and Blacks that attended church as a single body. That their Church governance was by a board of Deacons on which both Whites and Blacks had served on. And that as a single body the church would elect a single preacher to serve the congragation and that at some times they would elect a Black preacher and at others they would elect a White preacher.
But what really tipped the scales in favor of the County government to preserve the monument is when the Blacks withdrew their protest when they found out that one of the men who the Statue honored was the son of one of those White Deacons of that church during that early period of its history.