Man hangs white flag on Wilmington Confederate statue

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A white flag could be seen hanging from a Confederate statue on 3rd Street Tuesday evening.

Andrew Bopes says he put it there because he doesn’t understand why it’s still displayed.

(Photo: Andrew Bopes/Facebook)

Bopes said he lives and works downtown and has to walk by it everyday. “It doesn’t have too much of an affect on me except my empathy,” Bopes said. “There is no context as to why it’s displayed. It’s a participation trophy for someone on the wrong side of history. It needed some context and the white surrender flag gives it context. A war was fought here and this stuff happened, but the white flag gives it context.”

Since it was first displayed this afternoon, it has been removed a few times. Bopes says he continues to put it back up when taken down.

Chris Dobrusky, a neighbor who has been taking the white flag down, disagrees with Bopes.

“You don’t need to deface the statue,” Dobrusky said. “There’s a lot going on in our nation right now, and this could cause things to escalate in this area, and we don’t need that to happen. And this person who keeps putting up the flag has his reasons for it, and his ideas, but I told him he can just go through the proper channels. If he doesn’t want that statue there then he can call his congressman and he can see about getting it taken down. But he doesn’t need to keep climbing up there and taping a white flag to the gun. There’s no reason for that and it’s not his property to do so, and there’s just no reason for that right now.”

Wilmington Police were called to the scene of the statue on Tuesday night and arrived just as the flag was being taken down again.

As of 8:30 p.m. Tuesday night there was no flag placed on the statue.