Rocky Mount’s long-awaited, 14-foot-tall monument recognizing 70 U.S. Colored Troops — Black men who served the Union during the Civil War — is due to be unveiled on the lawn of the town’s historic First Baptist Church on Sunday afternoon.
“This event will celebrate the first monument of this type in the commonwealth of Virginia,” said Franklin County NAACP President Eric Anspaugh.
The event is the culmination of several years of research, politicking and patience on the part of the Franklin County NAACP, the Raising the Shade monument committee and community volunteers, who were determined to balance the county’s multiple Confederate monuments with an emphatic testament to untold Black history…