Salisbury Mayor Jake Day says he is joining nearly 300 mayors in backing an initiative to combat hate.
The Salisbury Daily Times reports that the effort is to promote more education about hate and bias in schools and law enforcement agencies.
The plan is sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors including 270 city chief executives and the Anti-Defamation League
The initiative follows the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in which Heather Heyer was killed.
Earlier this year Day came out in support of removing the plaque in downtown for Confederate General John Henry Winder who oversaw confederate prisons.
At the time he noted Winder was not even born in Salisbury but rather in Nanticoke.
Charlottesville
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) - A white nationalist wanted for crimes authorities say were committed on the campus of the University of Virginia a day before a deadly rally says he'll turn himself in to authorities.
University of Virginia police say Christopher Cantwell of Keene, New Hampshire, is wanted on three felony charges: two counts of the illegal use of tear gas or other gases and one count of malicious bodily injury with a "caustic substance," explosive or fire.
Contacted Tuesday by The Associated Press, Cantwell acknowledged he had pepper-sprayed a counter demonstrator during a protest but insisted he was defending himself, saying he did it "because my only other option was knocking out his teeth."
Cantwell said he looks forward to his day in court.
Norfolk
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - Virginia's second largest city has moved closer to relocating an 80-foot Confederate monument from its downtown to a cemetery.
Norfolk City Council approved a resolution Tuesday declaring its desire to move the monument as soon as state law allows it. The measure asks Virginia's attorney general to clarify what state law permits.
A 1998 Virginia law protects war monuments from removal by local governments. But some legal gray area surrounds it, with a local judge in Danville ruling recently that the law doesn't apply retroactively.
Norfolk's monument, known as "Johnny Reb" for its statue of a Confederate soldier, has stood at the site for 110 years. Mayor Kenny Alexander said moving it to a nearby confederate cemetery would put that graveyard on equal footing with one serving black Union soldiers.
Hotel Portrait
ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - historic hotel in Virginia has removed a portrait of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from its lobby in the wake of a deadly white nationalist rally earlier this month.
The Roanoke Times reports that the Hotel Roanoke removed the portrait last week.
Virginia Tech Foundation President John Dooley said that current events factored into the decision to remove the portrait, which the hotel said was also done as part of an ongoing remodel. The foundation owns the hotel, which was first built by a railway company in 1882.
Confederate monuments around the country have been removed following an Aug. 12 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where hate groups gathered to protest the city's decision to remove a Lee statue from a city park.
